Thursday, December 6, 2007

Five PSUs team up to acquire coal mines abroad

Five public sector companies, SAIL, RINL, NTPC, CIL and NMDC, have joined hands to acquire coal mines abroad with an initial investment of Rs 35 billion to meet the demand of steel industry, power sector and others.

Government approved formation of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with five PSUs as constituents for acquiring coal mines abroad to ensure security of supply of coking coal and high quality thermal coal to meet the demand.

SAIL and CIL have put in Rs 10 billion each as an initial equity capital while the other three PSUs have contributed Rs 5 billion each.

The approved initial authorized capital of the SPV has been fixed at Rs 100 billion and the initial equity capital is Rs 35 billion to be contributed by the five PSUs.

Coal India (CIL) through its subsidiary Coal Videsh has also been exploring opportunities for acquisition of coal properties in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Canada and Australia.

The total coal reserves in the country stand at 255.17 billion tons (222.90 billion tons of non-coking coal and 32.27 billion tons of coking coal).

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