Coal India hike prices

The Coal India board on Tuesday approved a non-coking coal price hike for both power and non-power consumers.

The price increase is expected to push the miner's revenue up by Rs 1,956 crore for the remaining period of the current fiscal.

The price revision is effective from Tuesday and the projected incremental annual revenue would be Rs 6,421 crore.

"The board has approved revision of non-coking coal prices with effect from January 9. This will be applicable to all the subsidiaries of Coal India including NEC for regulated and non regulated sectors," the miner said in a late night filing on Monday.

"Due to this revision, Coal India will earn approximately an incremental revenue of Rs 1,956 crore for the balance period of the current fiscal (2017-18) and the projected annual incremental revenue would be Rs 6,421 crore," an official said.

Reacting to the price revision, Coal Consumers' Association of India's Secretary General Subhasri Chaudhuri told IANS: "Coal consumers have no alternative but to bear the brunt of the price hike.

"Of late, Coal India's subsidiaries have increased peripheral charges like surface transport charges (for transporting coal from pit heads to siding) in the zero-three kms slab. The miner had also introduced evacuation facility charges at Rs 50 per tonne from December. However, in the latest revision, the miner reduced prices for some grades of coal."

According to sources, the price hike across various coal grades range between 22 per cent on the higher side to 3 per cent on the lower side. In some grades of coal, the prices were revised downward.

Following the price revision, Coal India's shares traded at 5.78 per cent higher at BSE at 11.24 a.m., while the Sensex was up 0.29 per cent at 34,453.10 points.

In the last month, the miner had introduced evacuation facility charges at Rs 50 per tonne for despatch of coal except despatch through rapid loading arrangement and as a result, the company was expected to generate approximately an additional revenue of Rs 2,500 crore for the full year and approximately Rs 800 crore for rest of the current fiscal.

In January 2017, the miner's subsidiary Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) increased coking coal prices by about 20 per cent and its another subsidiary Central Coalfields too had hiked its prices.