Coal India’s (CIL) underpinning for better quality coal supplies reflected a positive jump in the third party sample analysis as the grade conformity during Apr-Feb’21 improved to 65 per cent from 59 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Grade slippage during the third quarter of FY’21was down to 34 per cent compared to 41 per cent the same period year ago. During the first two months of the current fiscal’s fourth quarter, Jan’21 to Feb’r21, grade slippages declined further to 23per cent compared to 42 per cent of last year’s same period.
The notion that customers are billed for higher grade coal than one actually supplied is misconceived. CIL initially bills customers based on the declared grade of coal supplied. Such provisional bills are later adjusted, once the actual quality of coal is tested and established by an authorized Third Party Sampling agency, which are Central Institute of Mining & Fuel Research and Quality Council of India. This mutually agreed system of sampling is in vogue since 2016. CIL is further inducting two more globally reputed agencies for its third party sampling initiatives.
“No consumer suffers financial loss arising out of quality variation between the declared grade and the actual tested grade” said a senior executive of the company.
Contrary to losing out on quality front CIL, till January’21, stands to receive Rs.571Crores as net quality bonus for providing better coal than declared grade. This is expected to go up to around Rs.660 Crores considering the trend of referee results received during the ongoing FY.
Primary reason for grade variations is the inherent heterogeneous nature of Indian coal itself meaning, calorific value of coal extracted within the same seam at different points tends to vary. The gradation of mines is determined by Coal Controller’s Office annually which is a statutory body under GoI, and not by coal companies.
The analysis between weighted average of declared Gross Calorific Value (GCV) and analyzed GCV during April-January’21 shows the variation to be 26 K.cal/Kg which is lesser than one-tenth of a grade band, compared to the same period last year. The difference between two bands of a grade is 300 K.Cal/Kg.
Further, there is a provision in the agreement for challenging the result of the Third Party Sampling either by consumers or the coal company based on the analysis results obtained at their ends. In case of challenge, the part of coal samples preserved is sent to the designated government referee laboratory for re-analysis, as well.
CIL’s use of surface miners entail blast free selective mining leading to better quality coal output with the added advantage of consistent sized coal. Surface miner outputlogged 5.8 per cent growth at 220 MTs during April’20-February’21 compared to 208 MTs extracted through these machines in the same period last year. CIL is confident of surpassing last year’s output of 269 MTs achieved through surface miners.
CIL is also pushing ahead for utilization of mechanical scraping to remove extraneous material, use of mobile crushers for supply of sized coal, transportation of coal from mines to loading points in first mile connectivity. In a first, online ash analyzers are being procured for the mines of NCL and MCL for real time coal quality assessment. The slew of measures will further help CIL in consolidating its quality supplies.
