Yesterday, Coal India had closed the day with a gain of over 2% at Rs.136.30 on news that coal minister, Pralhad Joshi announced that the company would be investing over Rs.1.22 lakh crore on projects related to coal evacuation, exploration and clean coal technologies by 2023-24, to achieve 1 billion tonnes of fuel output target.

And it had also ended the month of August with a 7% (YoY) increase in coal output at 37.17 million tonnes.

But later in the evening, its Q1FY21 earnings came in and they were not good. The PSU posted a 55% (YoY) drop in consolidated net profit at Rs.2077 crore on a 26% drop in net sales at Rs.17,007 crore. The complete slump in demand on account of Covid pushed down the earnings.

It supplied 20% lower coal this quarter and that directly impacted the bottomline. E-Auction sales was at 15.8 million tonne v/s 19 million tonne.

Fuel supply to power plants also declined about 30% to 102 million tonne.

The market does not seem overtly perturbed with these numbers as the stock fell by just about 1% to Rs.134.85 and is trading around Rs.135. Its 10% LC is at Rs.122.70 and UC a Rs.149.90.