Coal India (CIL) on Tuesday said it will allow the supply of coal beyond the annual contracted quantity (ACQ) in a bid to provide stimulus to power plants to lift coal.

“CIL has done away with the earlier provision which allowed coal supplies up to a maximum of 120 per cent of ACQ to power plants and IPPs (independent power plants). The simplification would benefit power plants which prefer to lift higher quantities of coal beyond the stipulated ACQ. The fillip for CIL is that it would boost its supplies at a time coal demand is showing signs of slackening,” Coal India said in a statement.

The change would be applicable to the generating companies that have signed fuel supply agreements embedded with such a clause. Coal India’s pit heads currently have a stock of 72 million tonnes (mt), which is 47 per cent more than 49 mt on August 12, 2023.

Coal India’s total offtake under provisional data disclosed in the stock exchanges was 257.2 mt between April-July 2024, a growth of 4.4 per cent year-on-year. In the April-July period of 2023 the growth in offtake was 6.3 per cent.

Coal India said of the total 153 domestic coal-based power plants in the country, it has long term linkages with 127 power plants of 592 mt. The country has a total of 54 domestic coal based IPPs and the coal major has linkages with 50 of them for 155.7mt.

During FY24, generation through domestic coal-based power plants was 1,177 billion units. Of this, 78 per cent was fuelled by coal from CIL.

The average realisation of coal sold through fuel supply agreements was at ₹1,524.11 per tonne during the April-June period compared with ₹1,536.19 per tonne according to CIL’s stock exchange filing.

The scrip closed at ₹521.30 on the BSE, down 0.51 per cent over the previous close.