Metallurgical coke maker, Austral Coke and Projects Ltd on Monday said its Guinea-based subsidiary Astra Energy Ltd SARL, has acquired 16 mining licences in Guinea, West Africa. The company has acquired 12,63,000 acre of land for mining iron ore, bauxite and manganese.
Meanwhile, Austral Coke had last week acquired 1,82,000 square metre of land in the southern Andhra Pradesh to set up a coke plant with capacity of 6,00,000 million tonne per annum (mtpa). The financial details of which were not known.
Austral Cokes shares on Monday were up 3.67% to close at Rs 46.55 on the BSE.
The current capacity of the company is at 3,75,000 mtpa of coke manufacturing with expansion of 1,50,000 mtpa in the pipeline.
The company in its statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Monday said, initially, it plans to extract 5 million tonne of bauxite and iron ore and 0.1 million tonne of manganese from these mines in West Africa. The contract term is for 30 years with an extendable term of another 30 years.
?Austral Coke is the first Indian company to get licences in Guinea through this acquisition, which is considered as biggest land acquisition as the total land area is approximately 12,63,000 acre,? the company said in a statement.
It also expects reserves of 3.5 billion tonne of bauxite spread over 2,950 sq kms under six licences, iron ore reserves of 1.8 billion tonne spread over 1,455 sq kms under three licences and, manganese reserves are expected at 53 million tonne spread over 710 sq kms under seven licences.
The company also plans to mine coking coal in 6 licenced areas of Mozambique from 2010 onwards, which has 300 million tonnes of reserves,
Austral Coke?s net profit reported a fall of 66 % (from ordinary activities) to Rs 15.38 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2009 over the corresponding period a year earlier. Total income also dropped to Rs 89.70 crore in the first quarter of current financial year from Rs 441.49 crore of the same period last year.