Coal India (CIL) claimed that its maiden offer of approximately 5.2 lakh tonnes (LTs) of coal under the recently revamped single window e-auction evoked promising responses from coal consumers with the entire offered quantity getting booked.

Following the merger of previous multiple auction windows into a solitary outlet, Coal India held an e-auction in a couple of its subsidiaries on 3 March 2022.

The Indian government-owned coal miner said that the entire quantity of 3.2 LTs offered by Northern Coalfields under the newly structured auction window was 100% booked.

Likewise, a little over 1.98 LTs put up under the sole e-hammer by Eastern Coalfields was fully ordered.

According to Coal India, subsequent to the decision of the Indian Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in late February of allowing sale of non-linkage coal via a single e-auction window, only the spot e-auction currently caters to all types of coal consumers.

The consumers from regulated, non-regulated sectors and traders have to compete for coal under one common window, said the coal miner.

An official of Coal India said: “The big upshot is discovery of true market price for coal with removal of the segmentation. Previously, same coal used to fetch different prices in different e-auction windows.

“Another point in favour of the new system is increased transparency with all the offered coal placed in a single basket. Hitherto coal companies had the discretion of separate offers for different windows.”

Recently, Coal India said that it had secured offtake for 608.15 million tonnes of coal as of 4 March 2022 for the fiscal year 2022.