November 21, 2008

Update on coal production, import and consumption in India

Dr Dasari Narayana Rao union minister of state for coal informed parliament the quantum of coking coal and thermal coal produced and utilized in India during the last 3 years as under

	Coking Coal		Thermal
Year	Production	Utilized	Production	Utilized
2004-05	30.224	47.673	352.391	376.879
2005-06	31.511	47.428	375.528	386.745
2006-07(Prov)	32.188	47.586*	398.662	409.781*

In million tonnes
2006-07 imports are up to February 2007
Utilization has been arrived by adding dispatches of domestic coal for the year adding to imports

Dr Rao added that most of the coal produced in India contains higher ash but low sulphur compared to the coal available in the international market. With a view to improve the quality of coal by reducing the ash content, the coal is washed using various technologies. Since the sulphur content is considerably low in Indian coal, no special technology is used to reduce the sulphur content. However, only in case of Assam coalfield, the sulphur content is higher where production is insignificant as compared to total domestic production.

Dr Rao informed that domestic coking coal is being procured from Eastern Coalfields Limited, Bharat Coking Coal Limited, Central Coalfields Limited, Western Coalfields Limited and South Eastern Coalfields Limited by the public sector undertaking of India.

Details of country wise and year wise total quantity of coking and thermal coal imported in India during the last 3 years are given below

Coking Coal

Country	04-05	05-06	06-07
Argentina	0.024
Australia	14.044	13.973	13.575
Canada	0.048		0.043
China	0.877	0.906	0.545
Indonesia	0.214	0.319	0.137
New Zealand	0.437	0.606	0.661
Russia	0.189	0.045
South Africa	0.083	0.021	0.216
Switzerland	0.014
USA	0.771	1.022	0.597
Vietnam	0.007
Other	0.217		0.005
Total	16.925	16.892	15.780

In million tonnes
06-07 is up to February 2007

Thermal coal

Country	04-05	05-06	06-07
Australia	0.309	0.392	0.514
China	1.590	2.175	3.470
Indonesia	9.207	15.739	16.174
Russia	0.021		0.050
South Africa	0.473	3.223	1.539
USA	0.002		0.035
Vietnam	0.203	0.120	0.259
Other	0.214	0.044	0.001
Total	12.025	21.693	22.042

In million tonnes
06-07 is up to February 2007