Thaindian News

Kolkata, Oct 6 (IANS) Coal India Limited (CIL), the country’s biggest miner, saw its gross profit dip by about 20 percent in the first half of the current fiscal despite a 9.9 percent leap in production, according to the figures it released Tuesday.
CIL chairman Partha Bhattacharyya told mediapersons here that the profit before tax (PBT) during the period between April 1 and Sep 30, 2009, was Rs.36 billion as against Rs.44.84 billion in the corresponding period of the last fiscal.

With the impact of wage revision not yet neutralised, the profit after tax in the first half of 2009-10 would be marginal as CIL was likely to pay a tax of Rs.14 billion besides a statutory dividend to the government.

The CIL chief said the performance was expected to improve in the second half. However, the annual net profit could rise less compared to the turnover growth.

Bhattacharyya asserted that the company recorded one of the best performances in overall production in recent years. CIL extracted 184.64 million tonnes of coal from the mines of its subsidiaries in the period under review, compared to 167.8 million tonnes in the corresponding period last year.

All the CIL subsidiaries contributed to the overall good showing.

Central Coalfield Limited (CCL) led the pack with a production growth of 25 percent, followed by 17.7 percent by Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), nine percent by Northern Coalfields Limited(NCL), 8.6 percent by Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL), 4.4 percent by South Western Coalfields Limited (SWCL) and 4 percent by Western Coalfields Limited, he said.

While open cast mining was the driver of the overall production jump, and the company’s underground production went down by 1.5 percent to 20.78 million tonnes compared to 21.09 million tonnes during the corresponding time frame last fiscal.

“The shortfall was due to suspension of production in some BCCL mines. The management is reviewing whether these mines can be run or restructured,” the chairman said.

The company’s coal offtake growth declined by 1.3 percent point to 4.3 percent in the April-September period in comparison to that last year, Bhattacharyya said. The total coal offtake was 194.30 million tonnes during the first half of 2009-10.