Coal India sets production target of 464 mn tonnes

State-run Coal India Limited (CIL) has set a production target of 464 million tonnes in the next fiscal year and it will make a capital expenditure of Rs.42.75 billion in the period, a top company official said Friday.

“For the next financial year, our production target is 464 million tonnes. At the terminal year of the 12th Five Year Plan, that is 2016-17, the company has envisaged to produce 565.50 million tonnes in the usual business scenario.

“However, if clearances for the new projects to be taken into account, it can produce upto 615 million tonnes,” CIL acting chairperson and managing director (CMD) Zohra Chatterji said at a press conference here.

“We will make a capital expenditure of Rs.4,275 crore in the next financial year,” Chatterji said.

For this fiscal year, the company’s proposed capital expenditure was Rs 42.20 billion. As of Dec 31, 2011, the company’s cash reserve was Rs.550 billion.

On the prime minister’s direction to the CIL, the world’s largest coal producer, to make required fuel supplies to power utilities, Chatterjee said the company’s focus would be to increase production to fulfil the mandate.

“If the gap (between demand for and supply of coal) was too wide, then import was one of the ways to bridge the gap, but our outright effects would be to expand production,” she added.