Kolkata, Aug 1 (IANS): Coal India has reduced its total tentative offering for third phase of special forward e-auction for power producers for a six month period starting from August, by around 25 per cent to 35.55 million tonnes (mt) as compared to 47.41 mt announced for same period in May.

The coal behemoth said it would conduct the third phase of special forward e-auctionAfor power producers for August 2016 to January 2017 on August 17, 18 and 19.

According to the miner's notice in May, it had said that under the special forward e-auction, it would tentatively offer 47.41 mt of coal during August-January period for power producers.

In fact, the May notification had said that it would tentatively offer 63.61 mt of coal to power producers under the special forward e-auction for August 2016-March 2017 period and another 16 mt to the non-power sector consumers through an exclusive e-auction would be offered during the same period.

The miner, in an early July notice, had also revised the tentative total offering of coal to 51.22 mt to power producers under the special forward e-auction for August 2016-March 2017 period.

The latest notice said out of the total tentative offering of 35.55 mt of coal under the third phase of special forward e-auction for power producers, 17.54 mt coal would be offered through road mode and 18.01 mt coal to be offered through rail mode.

For the auction, a total of 4,539 rakes will be used for August to January period to transport coal.