Coal India Ltd’s (CIL) e-auction has been low this fiscal with the public sector coal miner having to step up supplies to the power sector, which witnessed 6.96% increase year-on-year. CIL didn’t hold any e-auction during October-November, which left the non-regulated sector starving for coal. But, the e-auctions from December fetched high premium for CIL and the company got an average premium of 81% over the notified price this fiscal as against 50% commanded last fiscal.
According to company sources, although e-auction volumes were low but that wouldn’t have any negative impact on the earnings because of the premium commanded over the shortfall that could have happened for low volumes of e-auction.
CIL has been generally pushing 20% of its production to the e-auction over the years but this has been below 10% of the total production at 61 MT this fiscal. CIL pushed around 112 MT to the e-auction last fiscal but e-auctions last fiscal did not command as much premium than it commanded this year.
After two months gap in e-auction CIL’s December auction, in which it offered 6 MT, nearly the entire amount was booked. Although average premium gained in that auction was 54% but subsidiaries like Northern Coalfields Ltd gained as much as 84% premium in that auction.