State-owned CIL on Wednesday said overall offtake of coal increased by 8 percent to 51.3 million tonnes last month, spurred by increased demand for the dry fuel from non-power sectors. The supply by Coal India (CIL) to non-power sectors was up by a robust 46 percent during the month, the PSU said in a statement.

”CIL’s off-take was 51.3 million tonnes (MTs) in November of the ongoing fiscal, an increase of 3.8 MT compared to 47.5 MTs of same month last year,” it said. Sectors other than power accounted for the entire increase.

Coal production at 51.7 MT in November clocked a growth of 3.3 per cent, with 1.7 MT uptick in absolute terms. CIL had produced 50 MT of coal in November 2019.

With the non-power consumers showing a tendency to lift more coal, CIL’s supply to this segment has risen to 12.3 MT in November, logging a growth of 46 percent compared to 8.4 MT in November last fiscal. Non-power sectors’ lifting accounted for 24 percent of the last month’s total despatch. This segment predominantly consists of cement, sponge iron, captive power plants and a host of other industries. The growth in supplies to the non-power sectors till November was 14 percent at 80.6 MT.

”We are reorienting our marketing plans. With the demand from power sector yet to boom fully we are concentrating our efforts on non-power consumers to expand our sales volume. Till there is demand resurgence from power sector, we shall follow this, which is helping us,” a senior executive of the company said. The PSU further said 83 power plants have regulated the lifting of coal in November. Of this, 26 have considerably reduced their programme placed for rakes against their entitlement. The remaining 57 have not filed their programme for rakes, which led to demand stagnation during the month.

The power sector of the country is stocked with 37.4 MT of coal at their end, sufficient for 22 days. With CIL riding high on 53.5 MT pithead stock a combined stock of 91 MT is available in the system, sufficient to meet any demand surge. After a spurt of 14 per cent in October, supply to power sector has come down to a flat growth in November at 39.1 MT due to weakened demand.

Average loading per day to non-power sector during the month marked a steep 59 per cent growth at 40 rakes per day against 25 rakes same month last year. Total rake loading went up by 20 per cent as CIL loaded 264 rakes per day last month against 220 rakes in November 2019.