Essar, Jindal in bid battle for Australian coal miner

Ruia-controlled Essar Group and Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) are competing to take over a coal mining company in Australia, a battle that reflects Indian steel makers’ expanding search for global raw material assets.

Perth-based Rocklands Richfield, coal explorer and coke producer, said Essar has launched a counter-bid of $128.1 million (about Rs 600 crore) for the acquisition, above an earlier offer from JSPL.

Essar has offered 50 Australian cents for each share, Rocklands said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) today. Jindal owns a 10.5 per cent stake in Rocklands, which controls three metallurgical coal projects in the state of Queensland, and made a takeover bid of 42 cents a share last month, valuing the company at $108.37 million (about Rs 500 crore).

Rocklands is a multi-pronged miner, following the acquisition of China Coke and Chemicals (CCC) in October 2007. It has two divisions, the income-producing CCC and coal exploration activities in Queensland’s Bowen Basin. The principal business activities of CCC are the manufacture and sale of grade-2 metallurgical coke from locally sourced coal, production of coke byproducts such as tar, crude benzene, ammonium sulphate and coal gas. The modern 400,000 tonne a year coking plant is located in Huaibei in Anhui Province in eastern China.

Rocklands Richfield holds a long-term licence over three highly promising coalfields in the Bowen Basin — Hillalong (100 per cent owned), Rocklands (60 per cent) and Richfield (60 per cent). Each is known to contain significant deposits of metallurgical coal for use in steel making. In all, coal resources are estimated to exceed 400 million tonnes.

Rocklands had previously agreed to JSPL’s deal, with major shareholder and company chairman Benny Wu agreeing to sell his 9.9 per cent stake and the board set to recommend the deal to shareholders. JSPL (Mauritius) also bought 30.94 million Rocklands shares from the open market between September 23 and October 2, to become a substantial shareholder with 10.49 per cent stake.

After the Essar offer, Rocklands said the merits of the two takeover proposals will be considered to determine which is superior. Essar’s proposal is conditional on it acquiring 60 per cent of Rocklands, the Sydney-based company said.

The mining firm has surged almost seven-fold in Sydney trading in the past six months, giving the company a market value of about A$118 million. It rose 17 per cent to 41 cents at 11:30 am in Sydney, poised for its biggest gain in more than seven years.

The takeover tussle comes as Indian steelmakers such as Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Essar Steel and JSPL expand their search for raw materials abroad to feed mounting domestic demand for steel. Ensuring raw material supply from own ore and coal mines reduces steel production cost by 30-40 per cent, said a Mumbai-based analyst.

Australia is the world's largest coal exporter and has vast resources of quality coking coal, used in steel making. Indian steelmakers are stepping up their investments in Australian coking coal assets as there is a shortfall of domestic supply to feed rapid growth in India's steel sector, forecast to raise its output to 124 million tonnes a year by 2012 from 65 million tonnes currently.