Setting a new performance high for the month of January of any year till now, Coal India (CIL) notched several record highs in coal supplies and production in January 2024.

CIL's output in January is 78.4 million tonnes (MTs) highest ever for the month, logging 9.1 per cent y-o-y growth. The month's increase of 6.5 MTs came over a high base of around 72 MTs of January 2023.

Accelerating the pace to reach the stiff 780 MTs coal production target of FY 2024, CIL till January produced 610.3 MTs - 59 MTs more compared to April- January 2023. The growth was 10.8%.

“What gives us some latitude in chasing a challenging output target is that we have moved past 600 MT production mark, on 29 January, 24 days ahead compared to last fiscal. We are striving to maintain the pace” said a senior executive of CIL.

CIL's supplies at 67.6 MTs have surged to their highest during January with near 5% growth compared to January 2023. The company ended the ten month period of the ongoing fiscal increasing its total off-take by 47.2 MTs with a growth of 8.3 percent to 619.5 MTs. This was despite all India transporters strike in the first week of January. Comparatively, the off-take was 572.3 MTs year ago same period.

Meeting the demand of power sector CIL supplied around 55 MTs to coal fired plants of the country, yet another high for the month. Staying ahead of the projected demand since the beginning of the fiscal, CIL's supplies to coal fired plants raced to 509 MTs till January, 7.3 MTs higher than 503.5 MT of the progressive commitment.

CIL's increased supplies forming the bulk, ensured stock at domestic coal based power plants hitting an all-time high of 36.2 MTs in January 2024 eclipsing the previous high of 34.5 MTs recorded four years ago same month.

On an average CIL loaded a record 315.2 rakes per day to all consuming sectors, which is 7.2 rakes higher than earlier 308 rakes record achieved for a month in March 2021. Each rake corresponds to around 4,000 tonnes of coal.

Loading to power plants on an average shot up to 288.4 rakes per day during the referred month, up by 10 rakes compared to 278.5 rakes in December 2023 which was the previous record for any month.