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| Coal India, Rio Tinto may hold talks soon on tie-up |
| Jayajit Dash / Kolkata/ Bhubaneswar Dec 26, 2009, 00:28 IST |
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State owned Coal India Limited (CIL), which is in the race for acquisition of overseas coal properties to plug the demand supply shortfall of the dry fuel in the domestic market, would negotiate with a few global mining majors including Rio Tinto in January 2010.
CIL has already held talks with some global mining players this month for a strategic alliance and would negotiate with a few more mining giants including Rio Tinto in January, said a source close to the development.
The nature of the strategic partnership with the global mining players would depend on the final outcome of the talks. CIL was open to picking up equity in the foreign mines or operate those mines jointly with the owners.
When contacted by Business Standard, a top CIL official said, “CIL has received a very good response to its global expressions of interest from the global mining players. We would negotiate with a couple of these firms in January.”
He, however, refused to divulge the names of these players. CIL is understood to have started negotiations with a few international coal miners like Peabody Energy (Australia), Massey Energy (USA) and Murray Energy, also based out of USA. These mining companies had given presentations to CIL.
The domestic coal major invited Expressions of Interest (EOI) from global mining firms in July this year for selection of strategic business partners in Australia, US, Indonesia and South Africa for undertaking joint business initiatives in coal mining.
As many as 52 global mining firms had evinced interest in forging a partnership and 12 of them were shortlisted by CIL. Coal India had also constituted a high-level committee to work out the modalities of the tie-up with these overseas coal firms.
Sources said, CIL aimed to seal the deal with a couple of these mining firms before the end of this fiscal.
CIL with a cash reserve of around Rs 30,000 crore was looking to expand overseas by forging partnerships with global mining giants.
It may be noted that in March this year, CIL was awarded two exploratory coal blocks- A1 and A2 in Tete province of Mozambique having an estimated reserve of one billon tonnes.
CIL is in negotiations with the Mozambique government for carrying out exploration work on the two coal blocks.
The mining activity on these two coal blocks, spread over 224 sq km, was set to commence after three years.
CIL has also formed a special purpose vehicle called International Coal Ventures Limited (ICVL) with four other state run firms- NTPC, SAIL, NMDC and RINL for acquisition of overseas coal assets.
The race for acquisition of overseas coal assets was gaining momentum in view of the burgeoning coal demand in India.
The domestic coal demand was projected at 730 million tonnes (mt) by 2011-12 but domestic coal production was pegged at 520 mt by then, thereby creating a shortfall of over 200 mt.
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