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• Under fire from industrial users, India's state-run monopoly coal miner, Coal India, rolled back on Tuesday an increase in prices under a new pricing policy, but will review the system after assessing its Jan-Mar quarter performance. Coal India decided this month to benchmark pricing for non-coking coal to gross calorific value (GCV) from the current useful heat value (UHV) based gradation. The move evoked protests from users in cement and steel sectors.
• N.C. Jha, its chairman, told reporters that while the GCV pricing system would continue, domestic prices would not be linked to global rates, a move that will make coal cheaper. The new pricing policy, to come up for review after March, had led to an increase of 5-12 percent for various grades, but Jha said delinking local prices from global rates would help offset a projected 12.5 per cent rise in prices. India has about 10 per cent of the world's coal reserves but struggles to provide private players more access to coal blocks and swifter environmental clearances and land acquisition. Domestic output by Coal India, the world's biggest coal producer, has stagnated.
• And coal and natural gas shortages and delays in acquiring land, have crimped the rollout of new power plants by big producers and left many existing units running below capacity. Earlier this month, some of India's biggest tycoons met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resolve the country's worsening electricity crunch by freeing access to fuel, primarily coal, for power plants. Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said the new coal pricing mechanism will be reviewed after assessing the Jan-Mar quarter revenues of Coal India, which produces about 80 percent of India's coal. Jaiswal said any revised mechanism would be revenue-neutral for Coal India, which aims to produce 464 million tonnes of coal in 2012/13.

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