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India: Coal Production to more than Double by 2020
As the world's second-largest coal importer, India's domestic coal production has soared, which has almost dashed the market's hopes of relying on the country's demand to alleviate the global oversupply.India hopes to more than double domestic coal production to 1.5 billion tons by 2020, of which 500 million tons will be produced by private companies.
India's state-owned producer Coal India's coal production increased by 32 million tons year-on-year to 494 million tons in the 2014-2015 fiscal year, the largest increase in 40 years.
Sabyasachi Mishra, head of mining product procurement at Tata International, said: “Coal imports will continue, but they will not increase, let alone the 25% expected by the outside world. % annual growth rate.”
Speaking at the International Coal Conference in Barcelona, Mishra said that India's demand for imported coal will remain at around 163 million tons per year.
Coal-fired power generation supplies 60% of India's electricity. Since taking office in May 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been working hard to promote the development of coal power and is committed to providing power to thousands of Indians who still use kerosene lamps.
However, land purchase restrictions have become one of the obstacles to this vision.
Kaamil Fareed, managing director of Coal & Oil Group, a large private thermal coal importer in India, said the biggest challenge facing the government is land acquisition.
He also said, "This government has been working hard to pass the land bill over the past year, and farmers' issues are the key issue."
Fareed believes that the Indian government can achieve its goal of increasing production to 1.5 billion tons in 2020, and predicts that the country's coal production will reach 900 million tons by 2019.
