The Indian government has revealed that the country would have to rely on coal imports until at least 2017, with no easing of the country’s coal import dependence in sight.

Junior Minister for Coal Pratik Prakashbapu Patil said last week that the gap between demand and supply was expected to continue until the final year of the twelfth Five Year Plan – 2017.

He said that, during the period April/January 2012/13, coal imports were pegged at 110.42-million tons from Indonesia, Australia, South Africa and the US.

The total production of coal in the country during the last financial year was 557.5-million tons, with the junior Minister adding that coal under open general licence could be imported at prevailing international prices by anyone after paying the applicable import duty.

The Planning Commission, which lays down the contours of the country’s Five Year Plans, has said that India’s coal imports were expected to reach 187-million tons by 2017, or almost 20% of the global trade in coal. However, a section of the Coal Ministry said that the import forecast may turn out to be conservative because there were at least 30 000 MW of planned power projects which were yet to firm up coal supply linkages.

If these projects were to get off the ground, it would be necessary to secure feedstock either through direct imports or the supply of imported coal through Coal India Limited (CIL), which, either way, would sharply increase the forecast import quantities, officials said.

Incidentally, CIL was preparing to ship in its maiden coal import consignment of around 5.8-million tons within the next few months, though officials declined to divulge any details of the source of such imports. However, they added that the timing of the shipment would depend on the signing of fuel supply agreements between the miner/importer and thermal power plants as well as the options for pass-through of the higher costs of imported coal.

However, CIL had not yet fixed the amount of coal it would have to import since several power generating companies dependent on imported coal could either import directly or source it through CIL as an intermediary.

NTPC, the country’s largest thermal power producer, had already clarified that it would import coal directly following any shortfall in coal supplies from CIL and had even announced its intention to take up thermal power projects entirely dependent on imported coal.