Coal India hikes non-coking fuel price; stock soars over 3 per cent

State-run miner Coal India (CIL) today said its board has approved a hike in non-coking coal prices for both power and non-power consumers with immediate effect. Coal India sources indicated that the average price hike could be around 10 per cent. Due to this revision, the world’s largest coal miner will earn an incremental revenue of Rs 1,956 crore for the remaining period of the 2017-18 fiscal year while total revenue will be Rs 6,421 crore, the company said in a regulatory filing. The price hike will be applicable to “all subsidiaries of Coal India, including NEC for regulated and non-regulated sectors”, the filing said. Shares of the company soared by 3.67 per cent to Rs 298.40 on BSE after the announcement. The miner was compelled to revise prices in the wake of rising costs which was a drag on its profitability for the last few quarters. CIL had last revised price for the fossil fuel in May 2016 by 6.3 per cent on an average that helped the miner to collect additional revenue of Rs 3,234 crore in 2016-17. Coal India slapped a levy of Rs 50 per tonne as coal evacuation charges in early December which is set to earn the public sector miner Rs 2,500 crore every year. In the remaining part of 2017-18, additional revenue from evacuation levy will be Rs 800 crore. The recent wage revision had pushed up its annual employees cost by additional Rs 5,600 crore. Meanwhile, Coal India also said sales bills will be raised on GCV (kcal/Kg) basis with effect from April 1, 2018 and the present mode of raising bill would continue till then.