Regional Coal: Indian coal imports to reach 250 MTPA by 2020

India will nearly triple coal imports to some 250 million tons a year by 2020, one of the country?s biggest producers of the fuel said on Tuesday.

Northern Coalfields CEO Vinay Kumar Singh told Mining Weekly Online that current import rates were between 80 million to 100 million tons.

?Over the next ten years it will increase to about 250-million tons a year,? he said in an interview on the sidelines of the World Energy Congress in Montreal.

India planned to increase power generation capacity by 100,000 MW over the next ten years, mainly by building coal-fired plants, Singh said earlier in a speech.

?Coal is the only solution? to India?s surging demand for power, he commented.

Northern Coalfields, owned by the Indian government, produced about 70-million tons of coal last year.

India sources its coal imports from South Africa, Australia and Indonesia.

South Africa was meeting India?s requirements for coal, Singh said, adding that requirements would rise in the future.

?Imports from South Africa will definitely increase. A significant increase is expected,? he commented, but would not be drawn on actual figures.(*)