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CHENNAI - Indian power producers NTPC Ltd, Tata Power and Torrent Power, and Coal India Ltd, the country's largest fuel producer, rose on Wednesday, driven by rising demand.
State-owned NTPC, India's largest power producer, and Indian miner Coal, which produces more than 80% of India's coal, posted their biggest intraday increase in more than seven years. Both stocks have trimmed gains from the day's highs.
Tata Power rose as much as 9.6% to a nearly 14-year high, while Torrent Power, another private power producer, hit a record.
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India's energy demand has increased after the easing of coronavirus-related restrictions across the country, leading to coal shortages in utilities.
Coal power accounts for more than 70% of India's annual electricity consumption. India's energy demand increased 13.2% in the first eight months of 2021, after declining for the first time in more than three decades in 2020.
India's federal Ministry of Energy pointed to a coal shortage more than a month ago and has since convened emergency meetings with stakeholders to address the challenges, but the coal deficit has widened, not reduced.
As of September 27, coal-fired utilities on average had stocks that would last five days, data from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) showed. Federal guidelines require utilities to have at least two weeks of coal reserves.
A total of 112 of the 135 coal plants had stocks that would last less than a week, compared with more than 70 plants at the same time last month. More than 70 plants were in stock for less than three days on Sept. 27, CEA data showed.
Indian utilities are battling coal shortages even though Coal India supplies to power plants have exceeded pre-COVID levels.
The world's largest coal miner supplied around 206 million tonnes of coal to utilities from April to August, 27% more than in the same period last year and 8% more compared to April- August 2019, said this month. (Edited by Barbara Lewis)
