With the coal demand from power sector exceeding the supply in 2018, the government is hopeful of higher output in the new year from already allocated mines and plans to further allot 10 mines to state-run behemoth Coal India Ltd (CIL) in 2019.

Of the 85 mines already allotted, 23 have already started production and the Coal Ministry expects 20 more mines to begin production in the current financial year ending March 2019 or early in the next fiscal.

The government’s effort to increase domestic coal production and power demand falling with the onset of the winters will check coal imports, a senior coal ministry official has said. Power plants across the country had imported 6.6 MT coal in October, 43.5% higher than the monthly average import quantity recorded this year. In the same month, electricity demand had surged 14% year-on-year.

About fifty months after the Supreme Court cancelled 204 captive coal block licences saying these were allocated in an illegal and arbitrary manner, production from the blocks are far below the level before the court’s decision. As the court had, in its September 2014 order, allowed 42 operational blocks of the cancelled lot to function till March 2015, these mines’ production peaked in FY15 at 43 million tonnes (MT) but has since plunged headlong.

Shares of Coal India, Vedanta, NTPC, Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Finolex Cables have hit their respective 52-week lows on the BSE on Monday.

BASF, CARE Ratings, Hexaware Technologies, ITD Cementation, Jindal Stainless, Shankara Building Products, Take Solutions and Timken India were among 18 stocks from the S&P BSE 500 index are some of the other counters that hit their 52-week lows today.

State-owned Coal India (CIL) Monday announced the reappointment of five independent directors - Loretta M Vas, Vinod Jain, DC Panigrahi, Khanindra Pathak, SB Agnihotri - to its board.

The "five independent directors were appointed by the ministry of coal vide its letter....dated November 17, 2015, for a period of three years. On completion of their tenure on November 16, 2018, they ceased to be independent directors of Coal India board."

Coal India has received a lukewarm response from its employees after its stocks were offered to them at a discount.

This comes after its stake sale offer in the open market got a tepid response — only 0.19 per cent oversubscription option was exercised despite provisioning a 6 per cent green-shoe option.

Higher sales and a better realisation have powered the earnings of Coal India for the quarter ended September 30, 2018. The consolidated net profit of the public sector miner for the quarter was Rs 3,084.70 crore against Rs 370.43 crore in the corresponding quarter previous year.

Coal India (CIL) has now made supply norms flexible for small consumers at a time when the Union coal ministry is absolutely focusing on supplying coal to the power sector only. The coal behemoth has relaxed its policy for mine-specific coal supply, which would ease availability of coal to consumers having less than 1 million tonne requirement per annum.

Coal India’s offer for sale garnered Rs 16.5 billion worth of bids from retail investors on Thursday.

Bids for 61.91 million shares were received from individual investors, as against the base issue size of 39.6 million.

Coal India OFS Day 2: After getting fully subscribed by institutional investors on day 1, Coal India OFS will open for retail investors on Thursday. The non-retail buyers put in bids for 15.84 crroe share of the 14.89 crore shares on offer on the first day of OFS on Wednesday, according to the NSE data. It amounts to a subscription of 1.06 times the shares reserved for institutional buyers. The sale of 15.84 crore shares amounts to over Rs 4,200 crore at a floor price of Rs 266.

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