CIL coal output in Apr-Oct rises 10 per cent to 306 million tonne

New Delhi: State-owned CIL on Friday said it produced 306.24 million tonne (MT) of coal in the first seven months of the ongoing fiscal, registering an increase of 10 per cent as compared to the year-ago period.

In the April-October period of 2017-18, the company's coal production was 278.03 MT, Coal India Ltd (CIL) said in a statement.

"The 'maharatna' coal miner has been maintaining a consistent double-digit production growth since the beginning of the financial year," it said.

CIL supplied 22.2 MT more coal to the power sector during the period under review as compared to the corresponding year-ago seven months, it added. Rake loading to power sector grew 8.2 per cent during April-October 2018.

"CIL as whole loaded 202.8 rakes per day on an average to power stations during April-October 2018 against 187.5 rakes per day for similar period last year, the increase in absolute terms being 15.3 rakes per day," it said.

The company as whole liquidated 34.57 MT of its pit-head stock during the first seven months, as the stock pile stood at around 21 MT by October-end. "CIL began 2018-19 with 55.55 MT of coal stock," it said.

Overall offtake during the reported period was 340.81 MT, clocking 7.4 per cent growth as compared to 317.28 MT in the year-ago seven months, it said.

"Our production and offtake is now over 17.5 lakh tonne per day and we aim to take it up further in November to swell up the coal stocks at power plants," a company official was quoted as saying in the statement. CIL accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal output.