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Essar Power has launched an exclusive reverse e-auction platform to import coal for the 1,200 MW Salaya plant in Gujarat.
The platform, in operation for three months now, has 30 registered miners and traders participating from Indonesia, Australia, South Africa and Colombia.
Once a month, Essar Power puts up information on the platform on the quantity and quality of coal required, and suppliers quote their prices. The auction, conducted over three hours, pops up the lowest bid every 10 minutes so that participants can revise their prices as required.
Essar Power MD Sushil Maroo said this is the first time that a reverse e-auction platform is being used to source coal, and plans are on to invite miners from the US to participate.
Expressing confidence that the reverse e-auctioning will work even in a sellers market, he said the company has managed to reduce its coal cost by 10 per cent in the last three months.
Cheaper optionMaroo further said that after the meltdown in global coal prices, imported coal has become a cheaper option than sourcing from the domestic market. Started in 2012, the Salaya plant is expected to register a net profit for the first time this fiscal.
The company has also started talks with GAIL to restart a 1,000 MW gas-based power plant next quarter. There are about 27,000 MW of gas-based power plants with an investment of ₹1 lakh crore that are either shut down or operating at 30 per cent PLF (plant load factor), said Maroo.
Tokisud blockEssar Power expects to start mining at the Tokisud coal block in Jharkhand in three months and start producing 1,200 MW at its Mahan plant in Madhya Pradesh, which has been lying idle for 28 months due to lack of fuel. The company has so far invested ₹10,000 crore at Mahan.
In Hazira, the company produces 135 MW using waste gas flared by the steel plant. The plant, which achieved a load factor of 98 per cent in the December quarter, recorded revenue of ₹53 crore and Ebitda of ₹46 crore. The second 135 MW plant at Hazira is expected to be commissioned in June.
With new projects going on stream and cost saving measures in place, Essar Power targets revenue of ₹5,500-6,000 crore and net profit of ₹250 crore for fiscal 2017.
It has a debt of ₹22,000 crore.
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