India’s largest B2B e-commerce company, mjunction services limited, kicked off its two-day 18th Indian Coal Markets Conference in Kolkata today. The theme of the conference is “Future of coal: Towards a free market ” which provided a platform to industry leaders to capture the essence of the transformational changes the coal sector is undergoing.
The conference addressed critical challenges confronting the energy and coal sector and discussions on the first day highlighted the continued importance of coal in the country’s energy mix.
Delivering the welcome address, Mr. Vinaya Varma, MD & CEO of mjunction Services Limited said, “Coal remains the backbone of India’s energy sector. Despite significant investments in the renewable energy, coal is projected to maintain its position as the leading source of power generation in India. However, the sector is witnessing major transformations with captive and commercial coal mines producing 173 million tonnes till February in FY25 — a 30% YoY increase. Also, infrastructure modernization, including rail networks and coal handling plants, is streamlining logistics and boosting efficiency. The sector is moving towards greater liberalization, driven by commercial coal mining and market-based pricing. The proposed coal trading stock exchange aims to enhance price transparency. This year’s conference theme, “The Future of Coal: Towards a Free Market” reflects this shift.”
In his keynote address, Mr. PM Prasad, Chairman, Coal India Ltd commented that coal would stay relevant for the next 2-3 decades and that commercial miners would complement efforts to provide energy security of the nation.
Coal India would continue to play a major role in the coal sector, he said and commented: “Coal India is not in any adverse risk. We and the commercial miners are complementing each other.”
According to Mr Prasad, there is gap between domestic production of coal and its demand leading to imports. However, with growing production by Coal India and the private miners, the gap will get reduced in 4-5 years.
Commenting on Coal India’s production strategy, Mr. Achyut Ghatak, Director (Technical), Coal India Ltd. said: “We are looking at developing high capacity Open Cast mines. However, gradually, we have to move towards Underground Mining.”
Coal India is also intensely pursuing longwall mining and targeting 5-6 mines to begin with, he added.
Niladri Bhattacharjee, Partner, Grant Thornton Bharat projected a demand of 2 billion tons by 2047.
“Based on blocks with coal PSUs and captive and commercial mines, capacity is around 1.5 billion tons and projected to reach production level of 2 billion tons by 2047,” he said.
However, there would be pressure on pricing and need for cost efficiency in the liberalized environment, he added.
