Coal India Ltd (CIL) is not willing to hand over any coking coal mines to Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Tata Steel but may explore opportunities to jointly develop such mines with the steel behemoths seeking to secure coking coal supplies.
CIL chairman Partha. S Bhattacharyya told FE: ?We are not going to hand over any of our mines to either SAIL or Tata Steel. In fact, CIL and Tata Steel are jointly working on a coking coal mine within the Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) command area, having an estimated 7 million tonne of reserves.?
?CIL, for the purpose of supplying coking coal to the steel behemoths, may first identify blocks and then think of exploring, mine planning and extracting coal from such blocks jointly with companies like SAIL and Tata Steel,? Bhattacharyya said.
In fact, SAIL and Tata Steel jointly submitted a proposal to the Union government seeking control of coking coal blocks, which CIL has been neglecting for a long time. SAIL chairman earlier said (as FE reported) that if the PSU could lessen import of coking, which is around 11 million tonnes per annum of its total requirement of 14 ?15 mtpa, then it would have contributed to lesser congestion at Indian ports.
CIL officials said although SAIL and Tata Steel has not made clear which mines they are talking about, there are 18 abandoned mines, some of which contains coking coal. These 18 mines have an estimated reserve of 1600 mt and CIL has already shortlisted 10 global mining contractors following an expression of interest (EOI), floated a couple of months back. ?Tenders for the abandoned mines will be floated soon,? officials said.
According to Bhattacharyya, anyone who wants to develop mines would have to come via the bidding route but pointed out that securing coking coal is a challenge.
CIL, SAIL, NTPC Ltd, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd and National Mineral Development Corporation Ltd (NMDCL) incorporated International Coal Ventures Ltd (ICVL) in May this year for hunting overseas coal assets and securing supplies of coking coal as well as thermal coal. The ICVL has not yet been successful in securing foreign coal assets.