Coal India Ltd. (CIL) has closed 2012-13 achieving 99 per cent of its offtake target with ground stocks of only 57 million tonnes, one of the lowest in recent times.
Production stood at 452.3 million tonnes, which marked a 97 per cent target fulfilment while being 11.7 million tonnes short of the target set for 2012-13.
Offtake, at 465.3 million tonnes, was 4.7 million tonnes short of the target. Coal stocks-on-ground were 13 million tonnes lesser than the 70.9 million tonnes that the company started the year with. Production growth rate was low at 3.9 per cent while offtake grew at 7.4 per cent.
CIL Chairman S. Narsing Rao said that the performance might have been better but for the extended week-end when CIL lost 1.6 million tonnes each in production and offtake. “ We had feared a loss of about a million tonne, but found that contract workers took an additional day off and there was no time left to make up for that loss.”
Mr. Rao said that he was happy with the overall performance “though challenges remain for the company.”