Coal India Limited (CIL), the country’s state-run coal mining company, wants a policy on coal exports before it could finalise commercial contracts for exporting the dry fuel, official said.
The CIL official said, "There is need for a policy. But, we are not aggressive as we are facing high demand in the domestic market and the initial aim is to fulfill that," reports PTI.
The senior CIL official informed the PTI that they are in process of dialogue for export to Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan to create a market for long term.
"A very small quantity of coal is exported to neighbouring countries through bilateral agreements," he added.
Earlier, Indian government was planning to export coal with high ash content or of higher grades.
The CIL was scouting for export opportunity at the time when pithead coal stock was high as close to 70 million tonne in May 2017.
Pithead coal finds comparatively low interest due to evacuation and cost issues.
With sudden spiralling demand from the power sector, the pithead stock had reduced to 23 million tonne now.
In the recent months the miner was failing to fulfil coal demand for power and non-power sectors like aluminium and cement sector.
Coal India had revised its internal production target to 652 million tonne against 630 million tonne fixed earlier following pressure from the ministry to increase production.