State-run trading firm MMTC Ltd will import 12.5 million tonnes of coal this fiscal for the country’s largest power producer, NTPC. MMTC has invited bids for purchasing coal to meet the requirements of the power major. The bids would have to be submitted by June 4 and would be evaluated the same day, MMTC said on its website.
According to the Central Vigilance Commission guidelines, the bid would be split in the ratio of 60:40 considering the nature of the fuel. Thus, the lowest bidder would supply 60 per cent of the quality and remaining 40 per cent would be purchased from the second lowest, the trading firm said.
Besides importing coal, the successful bidders would be responsible for making all arrangements for delivering the dry fuel at NTPC’s thermal power stations. The power company would only arrange for unloading of coal from railway wagons at their electricity generation plants, it said.
During this fiscal, NTPC requires close to 150 million tonnes of coal. Since the imported coal has a higher calorific value, the 12.5 million tonnes of dry fuel would meet around 20 million tonnes of fuel demand of NTPC.
Coal India Limited and its subsidiaries would meet the remaining requirement of about 130 million tonnes for NTPC during this fiscal. NTPC had set a target of importing 8.2 million tonnes of coal. It revised coal import target upwards to 12.5 million tonnes for this fiscal considering its power generation capacity addition of about 3,000 Mw this financial year.
NTPC had imported nearly 5 million tonnes of coal of the targeted 8.2 million tonnes during 2008-09 for meeting its requirement of 125 million tonnes. NTPC would commission two units of its Dadri thermal power station in Uttar Pradesh, one unit each in Sipat (Chhattisgarh), Korba (Chhattisgarh) and Aravalli (Jhajjar, Haryana) in 2009-10. Presently, NTPC has installed power generation capacity of around 30,000 Mw in the country.
Source : Business Standard