India’s coal import

India’s coal import

Subject: Geography

Section: Economic geography

Context- India’s coal imports from Russia in March could be the highest in more than two years, data showed, as Indian buyers continue buying the fuel from a market that is now increasingly isolated by sanctions.

Concept-

• Russia, usually India’s sixth-largest supplier of coking and thermal coal, could start offering more competitive prices to Chinese and Indian buyers as European and other customers spurn Russia because of sanctions.

Coal:

• Coal is a combustible black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams.
• Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements; chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
• Coal supplies about a quarter of the world’s primary energy and two-fifths of its electricity.
• India has the fifth largest coal reserves in the world.
• India is the second largest producer of coal in the world, after China.

Import & Export of Coal in India:

• India does not have enough reserves of good quality coal especially coking coal that is used as a raw material in steel making and allied industries.
• Most of it is imported from Indonesia, South Africa, Russia and Australia.
• As per the present Import policy, coal can be freely imported (under Open General Licence) by the consumers themselves considering their needs based on their commercial prudence.
• Coking Coal is being imported by Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and other Steel manufacturing units mainly to bridge the gap between the requirement and indigenous availability and to improve the quality.
• Coal based power plants, cement plants, captive power plants, sponge iron plants, industrial consumers and coal traders are importing non-coking coal.
• Coke is imported mainly by Pig-Iron manufacturers and Iron & Steel sector consumers using mini-blast furnace.

Distribution of coal imported into India in 2019, by country of origin:

• Indonesia – 49%
• Australia- 20%
• South Africa- 16%
• USA- 5%
• Russia- 3%
• Others- 8%