ET reported that the world largest coal producer Coal India Ltd may consider setting up power plants in the country to utilize excess coal.

Mr PS Bhattacharyya chairman of CIL on the sidelines of a coal summit organized by mjunction services, a 50:50 JV between Tata Steel and SAIL for e-commerce said "We may set up power plants if stockpiles keep on rising. Currently, stockpiles stands at 53 million tonnes."

He said that "The inventory is rising mainly due to shortage of railway wagons. Coal India generally needs 205-210 wagons a day. But, the firm had previously said that on an average it was getting merely 170 wagons a day.”

Mr Bhattacharyya added that "We will float the tender in next few months to import six million tonnes of coal for NTPC. The country's overall coal output during 2009-10 stood at about 532 million tonnes while consumption was over 600 million tonnes.”

He said that "Coal India has already shortlisted three global firms for a possible partnership."

Mr Bhattacharyya also said that the company is investing in projects to wash coal to increase its calorific value. CIL plans to commission 20 washeries with a capacity to wash 111 million tonnes of fuel by 2015 at an investment of INR 4,000 crore.

He said that "Prices of washed coal will go up. Average price of our coal is USD 20 a tonne. Washing would escalate its cost to USD 26-27 a tonne.”

(Sourced from ET)