Coal India on Monday said there is a “strong case” for increasing coal prices “very soon” as discussions are already underway with stakeholders.
“There is a strong case for increasing coal prices, as that has not happened in the last five-odd years. This year, the wage negotiation has taken place as well, which will have an impact on CIL’s financial condition, especially for a few subsidiaries where the manpower cost is very high,” Coal India chairman Pramod Agrawal said.
Speaking at the 16th Indian Coal Markets Conference, organised by Mjunction, Agrawal said there will be a “lot of problems”, if coal prices are not hiked. “Discussions are underway with stakeholders…It (coal price hike) will happen very soon,” he said.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the event, B Veera Reddy, director (technical) and director (finance), CIL, said apart from the wage impact, the coal miner’s costs have also increased due to a rise in raw materials costs. “We are trying to work out what is that (wage hike) impact and accordingly we will put up a proposal (on price hike)… Already, we are in discussion with the Ministry of Coal. There are many stakeholders. We need to have some consensus, then only we can take a decision,” Reddy informed.
Coal India said it is confident of meeting the targets of 700 million tonne of production this fiscal and 1 billion tonne by 2025-26. “What is important is the readiness to produce. No country can develop unless its energy resources are secured. So, we should be in readiness to produce if requirement is there, if not, the output can be adjusted accordingly,” Agrawal said.
Notably, in FY23, CIL’s production for 11 month till February stood at 619.7 million tonne, which was up 14.3% year-on-year. Agrawal said CIL was aiming at raising underground coal production to 100 million tonne by 2030 from around 25-30 million tonne at present.
Buoyed by higher revenue from operations due to higher realisation, Coal India reported a 69.41% year-on-year rise in its net profit to Rs 7719.11 crore during the third quarter ended December 31, 2022. The company had posted Rs 4.556.54 crore net profit in the third quarter last fiscal. Revenue from operations grew 23.69% y-o-y to Rs 35,169.33 crore, from Rs 28,433.50 crore for the corresponding period of FY22.
