India ready for huge coal import boom

Adani expects Asia's No. 3 economy to have the infrastructure in place to handle a surge in domestic coal demand from power, steel and cement industries, a senior executive said on Tuesday. Coal powers more than half of India's electricity plants and import demand for the commodity, projected at 135 million tonnes by 2012, is expected to rise sharply along with its booming economy.
"The government is on track on this one. I don't see a major issue arising from potential infrastructure bottlenecks because a lot of port-based power plants are coming up," said Sandeep Mehta, chief executive of Adani's container and logistics business on the sidelines of an industry event.
Adani plans to import more than 40 million tonnes of coal this year, up from 30 million tonnes last year, Mehta said.

India's government has promised to modernise its ports to accommodate larger vessels and make transporting iron ore and coal to roads and railways more efficient.
"There is sufficient rail availability," Mehta said. "Most of the coal is going to port-based power plants so there won't be any hinderance since rail will not be required."
Adani, which controls Indian power utility Adani Power will open a new terminal at its cape port, Mundra, in the first quarter of 2011, Mehta said.
The new facility, one of India's largest, will be able to handle cape-size vessels and up to 50 million tonnes a year, of which half will be coal shipments. The port of Mundra already accounts for 60 per cent of India's coal imports.
India's port capacity is expected to climb to 1.3 billion tonnes a year by April 2012 from the current 920 million tonnes, Shipping Minister G K Vasan said on Monday.

Source: The Economic Times