Coal India FY19 profit soars; share price closes 1 pct higher

The Coal India Ltd Thursday said its consolidated net profit soared sharply to Rs 6024.23 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2019, a jump of 362 per cent over the corresponding period last year. The leap was made possible due to a sharp decline in the company's employees benefit cost and better realisation on sales and cost management.

The world's largest miner had posted a post-tax profit of Rs 1302.63 crore in Q4 FY'18. Employees benefit cost for the quarter was down by 35 per cent to Rs 10,700 crore as against Rs 16,651 crore.

Profits from sales was at higher by 8 per cent to Rs 26,704.27 crore for the quarter under review against Rs 24,747.10 crore sales in FY'18. "Better average realisation in both notified and e-auction sales coupled with operational cost control propelled the company to make its best-ever financial performance," a company official said.

"Importantly, coal quality variance was under control and we have been able to arrest the grade slippage to a large extent," he said. Average realisation per tonne of coal in FSA sales during FY'19 witnessed 8 per cent increase to Rs 1348 from that of Rs 1243 a tonne in 2017-18.

The overall average realisation per tonne of coal went up to Rs 1529 during 2018-19 compared to Rs 1398 in previous fiscal, the growth is 9 per cent. The company's PAT for fiscal 2018-19 was 148 per cent higher to Rs 17,462 crore as against Rs 7,038.44 crore for the comparable previous fiscal.

The maharatna coal mining giant had produced 606.89 million tonnes of coal during 2018-19.