India’s coal imports to reach 160 million mt in fiscal 2016-17
India is expected to import around 160.16 million mt of coal in the current fiscal year 2016-17 (April-March), down 20% year on year, the country’s coal minister Piyush Goyal said.
Demand for coal in the current fiscal year is estimated at 884.87 million mt, against expected domestic supply of around 724.71 million mt — leaving a demand-supply gap of 160.16 million mt to be met through imports, Goyal said in a written reply to a question in parliament.
India has imported 86.59 million mt of coal valued at Rupee 334.89 billion ($4.9 billion) during the April-August period, Goyal said. He however, did not provide corresponding data for the same period of last year.
Of the estimated supply of 724.71 million mt this fiscal year, state-run Coal India Limited, or CIL, will supply 598.61 million mt, while Singareni Collieries Company Limited, or SCCL, will supply 58 million mt.
The remaining 68.10 million mt will come from other sources, including captive blocks, the minister said.
Goyal added that no power producer has approached CIL for supply of imported coal this year.
In accordance to the presidential directive issued to CIL and under the provision of the new Fuel Supply Agreement, power utility sector consumers holding annual contracts with CIL can opt for CIL to supply part of that contracted quantity with imported coal.
The consumers can also import the coal directly as coal comes under the open general license category.
According to coal ministry data, India imported around 199.88 million mt of coal valued at Rupee 845.035 billion last fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2016.
In fiscal 2014-15, the imports stood at 217.78 million mt, valued at Rupee 1,045 billion.
In order to meet coal demand internally and make India self-sufficient in coal production, the government is focused on increasing domestic production, which includes efforts to expedite environment and forest clearances, land acquisition and coordinated efforts with the railways ministry for movement of coal, the minister said.
CIL is also aiming to produce 1 billion mt of coal by 2019-20.
http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/indias-coal-imports-to-reach-160-million-mt-in-fiscal-2016-17/
A Bleak Outlook for Trump’s Promises to Coal Miners
Donald J. Trump made coal a centerpiece of his campaign, holding rousing rallies with miners in hard hats, who he said had been neglected under eight years of the Obama administration. The strategy paid off, helping him score crucial wins in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Now, though, coal may prove a different sort of symbol — that is, of the challenges that the president-elect will face delivering on his many promises to restore struggling sectors of the American economy.
The United States coal industry and the jobs that support it have been in decline for decades as a result of environmental concerns, automation in mining and slowdowns in manufacturing industries that burned coal for power.
And these days, no matter who is president, coal is at the mercy of market economics. Coal's No. 1 rival is cheap, cleaner-burning natural gas — which could become an even more potent competitor under the incoming administration. The probable easing of restrictions on pipeline building and loosening of rules on gas exploration and production would mean more natural gas reaching the market.
Despite recent increases, coal's price has been drifting downward for years. But the price of natural gas has fallen even more sharply.
"I don't think the Trump presidency will have a material impact on bringing coal miners back to work," said Ted O'Brien, a coal analyst at Doyle Trading Consultants, a leading energy industry research firm.
"He may eliminate the regulatory overhang," Mr. O'Brien said, referring to the environmental rules that have cast a shadow over coal, "but I have a hard time seeing a surge in coal demand."
Coal's long decline predates President Obama's arrival in the White House in 2009. The collapse of the American steel industry in late 20th century reduced demand for the metallurgical coal that is mined most prominently in Appalachia.
In addition, utilities have been slow to build new coal-fired power plants in recent decades because of air-quality concerns over the burning of the other type of coal — thermal coal — that is used for power plants and is mined across the country.
Mr. Trump campaigned to help both kinds of coal recover.
But natural gas may prove unbeatable. The hydraulic fracturing boom in shale fields that began a decade ago flooded the market with cheap natural gas that continues to erode coal's market share. As recently as early 2008, coal was the source of roughly half of the electricity generated in the United States. Now it is down to about 30 percent.
"There's just a lot of gas in this country, and that is going to hold gas prices down," said Scott Sheffield, chief executive of Pioneer Natural Resources, a major oil and natural gas producer, who said he voted for Mr. Trump.
The bleak outlook for coal may explain why some of the industry's executives have been reluctant to comment on how the Trump presidency may help their business: They may be wary of raising false hopes among their workers. And many may be reluctant to repeat past industry arguments that climate change was a hoax. Instead, coal producers would rather have tax incentives to support environmental improvements for coal-fired plants, as a way to ensure coal's long-term viability even beyond a Trump administration.
"Any exuberance has to be tempered," said Richard Reavey, vice president for government and public affairs at Cloud Peak Energy, a major Western coal producer. "The view should be cautious optimism."
Beyond the declining demand for coal, there has been an even more fundamental factor behind the shift in coal mining employment, which peaked decades ago. As with those in many industries, jobs in mining have fallen victim to automation. High-tech shears can now shave coal from underground seams — work that formerly required hundreds of miners. Surface mining, which has been increasing in recent years, has also replaced many workers with heavy machinery.
As a result, there are now just over 50,000 jobs in the American coal mining industry, down from a peak of more than 250,000 in 1980.
Most of the losses have come in Appalachian mines — which produce coal for making steel and electricity — because they are older, deeper and more expensive to operate. But automation is hitting employment in mines across the country.
"The industry is simply not going to produce the number of jobs that were historically available in the coal fields," said Patrick C. McGinley, a law professor at West Virginia University, who focuses on coal issues.
A few years ago coal executives hoped exports — which represent about 8 percent of national production — would boom along with the economies of China and the developing world. But exports peaked in 2012.
Since then, slower economic growth in the developing world, along with climate and pollution concerns, have depressed demand for coal.
The same considerations have prompted international development banks and large investment companies like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America to pull back on financing new coal-fired plants — a trend that is unlikely to change under Mr. Trump.
The Trump administration could help the coal industry somewhat by unwinding President Obama's Clean Power Plan, which was designed to replace coal-fired utility plants with those using natural gas and renewable energy sources. But the effects of the plan so far may be hard to reverse.
The tighter air pollution regulations, which are still under challenge in court, forced utilities to choose between revamping aging coal-fired power plants to make them cleaner, or switching to natural gas or green sources like wind and solar. Utilities across the country typically decided to switch.
Last year, as a result, 94 coal-fired power plants were closed across the country, and this year 40 more are expected to close by the end of December. It is most unlikely that Mr. Trump could do anything to bring those plants back online.
"All the older power plants that burned Eastern coal have been basically torn down, dismantled, put in mothballs, some of them permanently," said Robert J. Zik, the now-retired former vice president for operations at TECO Coal, a subsidiary of TECO Energy that was sold to another operator last year.
Other marginal measures the Trump administration might be able to take on coal's behalf, industry executives say, include rolling back the rules that protect streams from surface mining and easing those for leases and royalties on coal mined on federal lands.
Industry executives say that to extend the life of at least some of the 400 or so coal-burning power plants still in use in the United States, the Trump administration and lawmakers in Congress could work with them on "clean coal" initiatives.
Acknowledging that climate change is an issue even if Mr. Trump does not, Mr. Reavey of Cloud Peak Energy wants federal incentives for utilities to refit existing power plants to burn coal more efficiently and to attach systems to their facilities that will capture carbon emissions and sink them permanently in the ground. Such systems, known as carbon capture and sequestration, are currently so costly that utilities simply prefer to replace coal-fired plants with gas-fired ones.
Even before Mr. Trump's election, prices of some types of American coal — particularly the metallurgical variety that is mostly mined in Appalachia and is used to make steel — had been rallying.
That, in turn, had sent the stock prices of some coal mining operations soaring in recent months — a huge win for hedge funds that bought up the debt and equity of the companies when they were cheap.
But the big driver for coal's price run-up was the dwindling supply, as American producers cut back even as Chinese mines were curbing their own production in recent months. Those price benefits are expected to be short-lived, as demand is depressed both by China's pivot toward cleaner fuels to address the country's endemic air pollution and by its new focus on a less energy-intensive consumer economy.
"There is optimism that with government support, coal is more viable," said Mr. O'Brien, the industry analyst. "But the same headwinds still exist that have existed over the past five years."
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/20/a-bleak-outlook-for-trumps-promises-to-coal-miners.html
Rise in imported coal prices puts overseas coal mines back in focus
The spurt in global coal prices in past six months is likely to put Indian companies’ overseas coal assets back in focus with talks over fresh plans for these assets now underway.
“Higher global coal prices are encouraging such Indian firms to commence discussions on capital investment to open or develop their mines (abroad), even if in part. There are no buyers in sight at the moment, but financing is becoming possible,” said Kameswara Rao, partner with PWC.
Most of the Indian energy companies bought stakes in overseas coal assets in the 2010-2011 period when global coal prices were at a peak of $135 a tonne. Since then, Australian thermal coal spot prices, one of the indicators of global coal prices, hit $100-a-tonne in October for the first time since 2012.
The rise in coal prices might also give fresh impetus to companies that have been trying to exit from these assets. “In the past one to two months, with the coal prices, there is a lot of interest in evaluating options to exit them as they may get a better price. Some of the borrowers who had taken mines in Indonesia are now seriously looking at the option of selling and cutting losses,” said an investment banker who deals with powercompanies.
Adani Power, Tata Power Co, GMR Infrastructure, Reliance Power, GVK Power and Infrastructure, and Lanco Infratech are some of the larger companies which bought overseas coal assets in the 2010-2011 period. The two people quoted earlier in the story did not name any specific coal assets.
“At current coal prices, there is definitely business sense for some mines, especially the ones in Indonesia, as there is demand in the adjoining markets for this coal. These mines is a profitable venture in the short-term; anyone with a long-term view not seeing coal as a huge play may want to sell it,” said a coal analyst who did not wish to be identified. The analyst added the rise in prices may make a case for certain other companies to start or restart work at these overseas coal mines if the coal prices continue to remain firm.
An email questionnaire sent to Adani Power, Tata Power, Reliance Power, GVK Power, and Lanco remained unanswered. In an interview with Business Standard earlier this month, G B S Raju, chairman, Energy for GMR Group, had said: “We have an existing partner who might be interested; we are evaluating various options.” In 2011, GMR Infrastructure invested $500 million to buy a 30 per cent in Indonesia’s PT Golden Energy Minesstake.
However, not everyone is convinced global coalprices have firmed enough to bring cheer to Indian energy companies holding on to their overseas assets. “Even if global coal prices move up, India and China are the influencing factors. India is increasingly meeting its coal demand with domestic sources and China’s influence on the global commodity prices continues to fluctuate,” said a power sector analyst with a domestic brokerage firm.
Warm Regards
Anurag Singal
Sr Manager –Business Development
Essel Mining & Industries Ltd
14th Floor, Industry House
10,Camac Street –Kol-71
Ph: 033-30518415
The information contained in this electronic communication is intended solely for the individual(s) or entity to which it is addressed. It may contain proprietary, confidential and/or legally privileged information. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, printing, copying or other use of, or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information by person(s) or entities other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us by responding to this email or telephone and immediately and permanently delete all copies of this message and any attachments from your system(s). The contents of this message do not necessarily represent the views or policies of Aditya Birla Group. Computer viruses can be transmitted via email. Aditya Birla Group Companies attempts to sweep e-mails and attachments for viruses, it does not guarantee that either are virus free. The recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Aditya Birla Group does not accept any liability for any damage sustained as a result of viruses.
No comments:
Post a Comment