India’s state-owned mining group Coal India has released its yearly results, showing an increase in revenue and coal production for FY 2021-2022. Coal India’s total income increased by 21%, reaching INR113,618 crore (US$14.6bn) in FY 2021-2022 against INR93,768 crore (US$12.1bn) in the previous year. The company’s production of raw coal also increased by 4.5%, reaching 623 Mt in FY 2022. Coal India also plans to open one of the country’s largest coal mine during the October-December 2022 quarter. The Siarmal mine, located in the state of Odisha (eastern India), will start producing 2-5 Mt/year and will ramp up its production capacity of 50 Mt/year in 5 to 7 years.
This announcement comes as India is currently experiencing an important domestic coal shortage and struggles to keep pace with a surging power demand. Coal is a major energy source as it dominates India's electricity mix, reaching 73% of the country's 1,600 TWh of power generation in 2020.