India's coal deficit is expected to double to 265 million tonnes over the next five years despite a three fold increase in government spend on the sector. The Indian government's Planning Commission has said that domestic coal demand in India is set to increase to 1,000 million tonnes by the end of 2012-17, necessitating about 200 million tonnes of imports to bridge the shortfall in domestic output.
The commission has estimated that domestic production will rise to 770 million tonnes by 2017 on the basis of projected annual growth of around 7% in output.
Data showed that in the six months between April to September 2011, imports of coal jumped by about 70%. Overseas coal purchases rose to 20.9 million metric tonnes between April and September from 12.3 million tonnes a year ago.
Coal India, which is the world's largest producer of coal and accounts for over 85% of India's production of the dry fuel, has also lowered its production target for the ongoing financial year to at least 440 million tonnes from the estimate of 452 million tonnes in its annual plan.
Officials said importing large quantities of coal at today's prices would mean a forex bill of around $32 billion. Imports in September rose 51% from a year ago period to 2.65 million tonnes, they added.
[Coal Processing Plant for India]
As per an Indian government Planning Commission document, output in 2011-12 was expected to reach 680 million tonnes, but the estimate was later scaled down to 630 million tonnes in a mid term appraisal by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It was again revised downward to 554 million tonnes.
In the last fiscal, Coal India produced about 431 million tonnes of coal, almost the same output it recorded in 2009-10. The firm has said it was planning to mine between 556 million tonnes and 615 million tonnes of coal between 2012-17.
Earlier, Coal India had asked the government to scale down its production target for the 2011-12 financial year to 448 million tonnes, fearing it would not be able to make up for the slippage in output in the first half of the fiscal.
The company had missed its April-September target by about 20 million tonnes, recording an output of 176 million tonnes as against the target of 196 million tonnes. Officials blamed inclement weather, including heavy rains in August and September which they said affected production in almost all its collieries.
[concrete grinding machine tools]
Last year too, Coal India lowered its production target to 440.20 million tonnes from 460.50 million tonnes. As per Geological Survey of India, as on April 1, 2011, a total of 285,862 million tonnes of geological resources (coking coal 33.47 billion tonnes and non-coking coal 252.40 billion tonnes) of coal have so far been estimated in India up to the maximum depth of 1200 metre.
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