India calls for a halt to the import of coal and the substitution of coal

Recently, pralhad Josh, India's coal minister, called on state ministers to stop importing coal and increase the amount of domestic coal supplied by the state-owned coal India Ltd in a written document. Novel coronavirus pneumonia has been supplied by India coal company in recent months, but the government of India has implemented a closed measure to curb the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, which has led to a downward trend in domestic electricity demand. A person familiar with the matter said that a few days ago, India's coal minister had written to the chief ministers of various states, calling for the cessation of coal import and requiring Indian states to purchase coal from Indian coal companies. In the 2019-20 fiscal year, India's coal import increased by 3.2% to 243 million tons. To boost demand weakness due to closures, the government also announced a series of measures, such as increasing coal supply for linkage consumers. After novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreaks, coal minister Josh announced some compensation measures for consumers of India coal companies, including the power sector, the India Ministry of coal said.

"Now, if the coal mines have coal, they can increase the supply, even more than the contracted supply." Coal ministry said. The Ministry also announced that if Indian coal companies supply more than the upper limit of the coal supply agreement (FSA), there will be no performance incentive policy for users. "There will also be a decline in price increases to non regulatory sectors in the base price auction." Coal ministry said. At present, the coal auction will be conducted according to the notice price. "These measures are expected to stimulate coal demand in the current situation. We will conduct a situation review in September 2020 to determine whether to continue. " Josh said. Indian coal companies account for about 80% of the country's coal demand. In March 2020, the output of coal companies reached a record monthly output of 84.36 million tons, an increase of 6.5% over the same period of 2018-19. "On March 30, Indian coal companies produced 3.85 million tons of coal a day, the highest daily output ever recorded." An executive at the Indian coal company said. From January to March this year, India's coal production rebounded strongly to 213.7 million tons, an increase of 19.26 million tons compared with last September to December. In the 2019-20 fiscal year (April 2019 March 2020), the total coal production of Indian coal company is 6021.4 million tons, an increase of 9.9% compared with that in the 2018-19 fiscal year. "Due to the extended monsoon season and higher rainfall, the company's coal production dropped significantly in the first half of 2019-20, while the production picked up in the second half of 2019-20." An Indian coal executive said production in the second half of the fiscal year increased 120 million tons from the first half.