Coal

EDITORIAL

Dear Readers,Over the last few years, talks have been rife on a number of public sector undertakings in India looking to acquire coal properties abroad to meet the country’s growing coal demand. Nothing concrete really came out of it as far as PSU companies are concerned though a number of private sector companies have successfully acquired coal assets abroad.

However, a ray of hope has emerged in the recent past as a number of companies, particularly Coal India Ltd and NTPC, the largest producer and consumer of coal in the country, have started focusing on acquisition of coal assets abroad.

Also a special purpose vehicle named International Coal Ventures Ltd (ICVL) was formed sometime ago whose sole objective was to look for coal block acquisition opportunities in overseas countries.

In between, Coal India was given the responsibility to meet the country’s full coal requirement, even if required by imports, wherever feasible. Realising the importance of the responsibility thrust on it, Coal India found that only concentrating on increasing domestic production may not help it to achieve the target of meeting the country’s coal demand.

In view of this, the company has not only chalked out strategies and prepared a base for import of coal that would be supplied to interested parties, it has also formed a department within the company named Coal Videsh with a sole objective to explore acquisition opportunities abroad.

It is said that CIL had been receiving proposals from various miners across the globe for quite some time, but it could not make much progress largely because the proposals were really not worth considering.

In addition to not getting feasible proposals, the company’s initiative to taste success abroad was also hampered to a great extent as it was assumed that government approvals for proposals will get delayed, irrespective of the proposal. In fact, this assumption also stood in the way of the company seriously pursuing some of the opportunities that needed quick decision-making. The situation was more or less similar for NTPC as well as ICVL.

However, in recent times, the government of India, in order to provide a fresh lease of life to the initiatives of ICVL, has decided to set up an empowered committee of secretaries that will quickly approve any proposal that came before it for acquisition of coal assets abroad.

At the beginning of September, it was decided by the government that the same committee will look after the proposals that came from CIL.

With these initiatives, it is expected that the time is not far when either ICVL or Coal India will be able to announce their first decision on acquisition of coal properties abroad.

Till this happens, we in Coal Insights can only sincerely hope that the initiatives of the government and the PSU companies will bear fruit and Indian power generating companies will have enough coal to operate at 100 percent capacity.

Before I sign off, I wish our esteemed readers a Happy Dussehra and prosperous Diwali.

RegardsExecutive Editor

Chief EditorKohinoor Mandal, Tel: +91 92300 57486Email: [email protected]

Executive EditorRakesh Dubey, Tel: +91 92310 02087Email: [email protected]

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COAL INSIGHTS � SEPTEMBER 2009

LOGISTICS 54 Aluminium wagons pose problems

for coal consumers 55 Railwaysfreighttrafficup6.5%in

April-Aug 56 Freight rates continue to drop 57 Coal buyers insist on new vessels 58 IndianportsApr-Julytraffichandling

up marginally

CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT 59 Neyveli plans more than 6-fold

capacity hike 61 SCCL gets power at par with

Miniratna cos 62 RHM helping to optimise value of

P&H shovels in mines

POWER SECTOR UPDATE 63 India exceeds nuclear power target

in Aug 66 All India energy generation

programme

SNAP SHOT 79 Peabody focuses on Asian markets

E-AUCTION DATA 80 CIL’s e-auction coal sales spurt in

August

ALL INDIA COAL DATA 89 India’s July coal production up

9.81%

IMPORT DATA 90 Port import data

COnTEnTs

COVER STORY

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36 Tender on closed mines may be delayed

36 LAM coke prices up Rs 1000/ton in 2 months

37 First CTL project may go on stream by 2016

37 India may import 70 mt coal in 2009-10: Govt

38 Fate of Coal Mines Bill uncertain 39 Cases of sub-standard coal supply

falling y-o-y 40 Mineral production value at Rs 2965

cr in July 42 CIL on verge of FSA with power

sector 42 Extraction from under Damodar still

uncertain 43 WBsellspowerevenduringdeficit

period 44 India’sfirstcoalspotpriceindex

launched 45 PXIL launches longer duration

exchange-traded products 46 Investments in core sector needed:

Pranab 46 Efforts on to increase CBM

production

GOVERNMENT 47 India may have a joint working

group with Indonesia 48 Ruralelectrificationschemetomiss

target 48 CERCnotifiestariffnormsforgreen

power

INTERNATIONAL 50 Indonesia to auction four areas:

Report 50 India’s Aug coal imports from SA at

1.33 mt 51 China’sAugustcoalexportfalls57% 52 Shanxi coke reference price drops 52 Another mine blast kills 42 in Henan

province

6 Indian PSUs vying for foreign coal assets

10 Minister visits Australia to secure coal supplies

12 NTPC, L&T eyeing assets abroad

COAL MARKET FUNDAMENTALS 14 Coking coal bull run continues 16 Thermal coal price recovery

arrested

FEATURE 18 Acquiring coal blocks abroad made

easier for CIL 19 Coal prices to soar, warns CIL chief 21 Indonesian miner keen to swap

equity for coal 22 Windenergycanprovidefor24%of

power needs 24 FSA must include Railways: ICMA 26 Coal ministry achieves 100-day

action plan 28 Mines ministry achieves 100-day

target 29 Power ministry trips on 100-day

agenda 30 Fresh notices to captive coal block

holders 32 After-market mining recovery

foreseen 33 Rajmahal project to be expanded to

17 mtpa 34 Prakash Industries’ Chotia mine

bags award