India's largest power producer, NTPC, has come up with a series of fresh tenders to procure 3 mnt of imported coal thereby covering fuel requirements of its entire fleet of thermal power plants.

The material procurement against these tenders formed part of the residual supplies which the company had committed to address soaring demand in summers. Otherwise, the company relies mainly on domestic supplies to operate its plants.

This comes after the government urged power producers to import coal for blending. In this regard, the company had decided to import around 5.4 mnt of coal in the half of FY24.

Previously, the company had made enquiry for 2 mnt of imported coal via two separate tenders in March, 2023. In addition, few tenders for imported coal supplies were also floated in batches by the subsidiary companies of NTPC.

Scope of work

The latest bids for imported coal supply have been invited via three identical tenders each of 1 mnt quantity. These are meant for the individual power plants against which delivery is intended on FOR basis within four months.

The coal specification comprises GCV of 5,000 kcal/kg on ARB. Besides, ash and total moisture content must not exceed 35%.

The bidding process will be carried out on single stage two envelope process. The due date for bid submission is scheduled on 14 June, 2023.

Power demand position

India's power demand has started to rise amid scorching heat-waves, recovering from the spell of untimely rains which had weighed down electricity requirement in April.

As per government data, peak power demand that was met was recorded at 221.076 giga-watt (GW) on 17 May, 2023. This was an all-time high and the highest supply in a day in this fiscal year. The peak power supply in the last fiscal was recorded at 207.23 GW in April 2022.

The government is expecting that peak demand will touch 229 GW during this summer season.