In a bid to extend help & support to its consumers during the present crisis of COVID-19, Western Coalfields Ltd.(WCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd., has offered a flexible route of Spot e-auction of Coal during May’20. This will not only help in providing immediate financial relief to the consumers but will also give them the opportunity to plan their post-lockdown coal requirement.
WCL has offered Special Spot e-auction of Coal for a validity period of 3 months. The volume of coal offered is 3.5 Million Tonnes which is also high. Normally, Spot auction is being done with a coal lifting period of 45 days only & coal offered is below 1 Million Tonne. The payment has to be made within 10 days. With this flexible offer, consumers will have the option to book the quantity in advance & can make payment & lift coal as per their requirement during the next 3 months.
This relief to the consumers during the present lockdown situation will be in succession to the reduction in floor price of coal auction already implemented on the directives of the Ministry of Coal & Coal India. Earlier, the floor price of coal for auction was fixed adding 30% over the notified price for some specific mines & 40% in case of other mines. Now, all auctions are being done at the notified price which is giving substantial financial relief to consumers.
The successful bidder and the coal company shall have the option of mutually deciding the Monthly lifting schedule. The Successful bidder would be required to make the payment for Monthly Schedule quantity by the last day of the preceding month. Participants will have the option of submission of EMD in the form of Bank Guarantee(BG) also.
WCL being located in Central India, has the advantage of providing cheaper doorstep coal to consumers located in Central, Western & Southern India. The advantage to consumers is huge savings in Railway freight in transportation of coal from Eastern part of the country. The savings in landed price of coal ranges from Rs.500 to 750 per tonne. In line with the directive of Govt. of India to stop import of thermal coal by State Gencos, WCL is ready to cater to the demand of coal of such Power consumers of this region. With sufficient stock of coal available & with year by year growth in coal production, WCL is also geared up to supply coal to other Pvt Power Consumers as well under import substitution initiative.
