Coal India Q1 net falls 16.5 pct, lags estimates

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Coal India , the world's largest coal miner by output, posted its first quarterly profit decline in five quarters, because of lower sales price and higher fuel and wage costs.

The state-owned miner said net profit for its fiscal first quarter fell to 37.31 billion Indian rupees from 44.69 billion rupees a year earlier. Net sales were 165 billion rupees.

Analysts, on average, had forecast net profit of 42.40 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine data.

(Reporting by Prashant Mehra & Siddesh Mayenkar; Editing by Miral Fahmy/Ruth Pitchford)