Mining major, Coal India Ltd., suffered losses to the tune of ₹700 crore in the April-June quarter owing to a sharp rise in diesel prices, a top company official said. “In the quarter (under review), we lost about ₹700 crore as diesel prices increased by about 35%. It was in the range of ₹66-67 and now at around ₹89. This has been a substantial rise,” Coal India Chairman, Pramod Agrawal, said during a recent earnings conference call.
The state-run miner has been drawing up plans to replace its diesel-run heavy machinery with LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas)-fired equipment, and adding 1,500 electric vehicles to its fleet in the next five years to support carbon emission cuts.
CIL has envisaged creating a carbon offset of around 2.5 lakh tonnes over the next five years, the Kolkata-headquartered company said.
It has also taken initiatives for a pilot project in collaboration with GAIL (India) Ltd. in some mining sites before starting bulk use of LNG.
Mr. Agarwal had also said that the costs of Coal India have gone up and there is no reason that the mining behemoth should not increase the price of dry fuel.
