Coaltrans India 2027, taking place in New Delhi from 12 – 14 January, will bring together producers, buyers, traders, steelmakers, utilities, industrial consumers, infrastructure providers, and market specialists to examine how those competing forces are reshaping the market.
The programme has been built around a central question: as India produces more coal domestically, where will supply constraints, quality requirements, infrastructure, and industrial growth continue to create demand for different grades and international tonnes?
India’s draft National Steel Policy – Vision 2047 – has added further urgency to that question. The policy projects coking-coal demand increasing from 72 million t currently to 99 million t by 2030. Non-coking coal demand for direct reduced iron production is forecast to rise from 68 million t to 105 million t over the same period.
Those projections underline a growing divide within the market.
India is increasing domestic coal output, but expanding production does not automatically resolve questions around quality, grade, geography, or end use. The steel sector requires specific metallurgical coal qualities, while DRI producers, power generators, cement companies, and other industrial users face their own supply and procurement constraints.
The programme will examine those differences rather than treating Indian coal demand as a single market.
Steel growth moves metallurgical coal higher up the agenda
India’s expanding steel industry will form a major part of the 2027 discussion.
The programme will examine the practical implications of higher coking-coal demand, including domestic beneficiation, the limits of substitution between origins, Australia’s continuing role in Indian blends, diversification towards alternative suppliers, and the impact of future steelmaking technologies on raw-material requirements.
Confirmed participants include Sanjay Agarwal, Executive Director (Coal Imports), Steel Authority of India; Sandeep Kalia, Head – Coking Coal Sales, Tata International; Simon Nicholas, Lead Analyst – Global Steel, IEEFA; and Mukesh Kumar, Principal Analyst, Wood Mackenzie.
The programme will also examine the wider industrial fuel market, including coal, petcoke, and the switching economics facing cement and heavy industry.
Rituraj Jha, Senior Management Consultant at Worley Consulting, will lead that discussion as industrial buyers assess relative fuel availability, delivered cost, and the price signals that trigger switching between fuels and origins.
Domestic production is changing procurement, not eliminating complexity
India’s production story is also moving beyond the billion-tonne milestone.
The 2027 programme will examine whether commercial and captive mining can deliver the right coal to the right users at the right quality, cost, and reliability.
That question has become more commercially relevant as major utilities explore a wider range of domestic procurement options. NTPC is reportedly considering increased purchases from private commercial miners as power-station inventories remain under pressure.
Confirmed contributors to the domestic supply and market reform discussions include Neeraj Patel, General Manager – Coal Marketing at Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation; Saunak Dey, AVP – Coal Commercial & Regulatory Affairs at Jindal India Thermal Power; and Rajib Maitra, Partner & Sector Leader – Energy, Resources & Industrials at Deloitte South Asia.
The imported-coal question becomes more selective
Rising domestic production does not mean imported coal disappears.
The more relevant commercial question is increasingly which tonnes remain competitive once quality, freight, specifications, currency, and delivered cost are included.
Pritish Raj, Senior Manager Price Reporting, Thermal Coal at S&P Global Commodity Insights, will examine where imported coal still wins on a quality-adjusted and delivered-cost basis.
The programme will also test how India’s changing import requirements affect major international supply regions, including South Africa, North America, and other producing markets.
Bernard Dalton, Executive Head of Marketing at Thungela, will provide the South African supplier perspective, while Melanie Mackay, Energy & Critical Minerals Advisor and Director of the Western Canadian Coal Society, will examine whether a larger metallurgical coal corridor between North America and India can develop.
The Day One closing debate will then test whether India’s total coal imports are heading towards growth, decline, or a change in composition.
Confirmed participants include Kapil Thapar, Executive Director (Fuel Management) at CESC and President of the Coal Consumers’ Association of India; Matthew Boyle, Head of Market Intelligence and Analytics at Ashon International; Capt. Pawan Kumar, Vice President – Coal Sourcing & Logistics at SEIL Energy India; Michael Gray, Managing Director at Jameson Resources; and Sareena Patel, Co-Head Thermal Coal Research at McCloskey by OPIS.
Logistics and delivered cost remain critical
India’s ability to increase domestic production is only one part of the supply equation.
Recent improvements in railway loading have slowed the depletion of power-station inventories, but stock levels remain under pressure. Average daily railway rakes loaded for the power sector increased from 426 in September to 469 in early October, while average daily coal supply rose from 2.21 million t to 2.49 million t. Yet inventories were still declining overall.
That reinforces the importance of rail capacity, mine evacuation, ports, and inland logistics to India’s future coal balance.
Rahul Sharan, Deputy Director at Drewry, will moderate the infrastructure discussion alongside Shobhit Bhatnagar, Director – Operations & Business Development at DFCCIL, and Manish Gupta, Executive Vice President at JSW Infrastructure.
Procurement becomes a market in its own right
Day Two will look further inside the commercial decisions being made by buyers and traders.
Natalia Bergesen, Head of Data Licensing & Sales at globalCOAL, will moderate a procurement forum examining spot versus term purchasing, index exposure, hedging, inventories, supplier diversification, and counterparty risk.
She will be joined by Ashish Bhardwaj, Chief Commercial Officer at Vedanta Iron & Steel, and Dinesh Gupta, APAC Head of Energy at StoneX Financial.
Clyde Russell, Asia Commodities and Energy Columnist at Reuters, is also confirmed to open Day Two with a keynote examining geopolitical risk, sanctions, changing trade corridors, and their implications for India’s energy security and procurement decisions.
From coal supply to power-system design
The conference will close by looking beyond coal procurement alone.
India is simultaneously increasing thermal capacity and expanding renewables, battery storage, transmission, gas, and nuclear power. The programme will examine how those technologies interact and what a changing electricity system means for future coal burn and plant utilisation.
Rudhi Pradhan, Lead Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Accenture India MU, is among the confirmed participants joining that discussion.
