MOIL plans foray into power generation

Country's largest manganese miner MOIL plans to enter power generation business and has invited expression of interest from private sector players for a tie-up for development of coal blocks.

"We are planning to diversify into power sector. For this, we plan to acquire and develop coal blocks under public private partnership scheme and have invited firms to join hands with us for exploring and developing the same," Manganese Ore India Ltd (MOIL) Chairman KJ Singh told PTI.

The Maharashtra-headquartered company, under the administrative control of Steel Ministry, however, did not specify the area or size of the power plant it proposes to set up.

"We are still to decide on the location and size of the plant," he said.

On coal blocks, Singh said based upon the response from firms, MOIL may go for tie-up for jointly securing, exploring, mining, commercially exploiting and participating in value addition projects relating to the coal blocks.

"Depending upon response, the company may decide on having one or more pacts with a provision for ultimately converting them into special purpose vehicles or joint ventures," he said.

MOIL, which presently meets 50% of the domestic requirement of the manganese ore, plans to ramp up output to 1.5 million tonne from the existing 1.1 million tonne by 2015 through an investment of Rs 768 crore.

Manganese ore is a key ingredient for producing steel and about 30 kg of ore is required to produce a tonne of steel.

It is looking at acquisitions in South Africa, Turkey and Congo to meet growing domestic demand for manganese ore, which is pegged to touch 4.5 million tonne.

At present, MOIL operates 10 mines, six located in the Nagpur and Bhandara districts of Maharashtra and four in the Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh. All these mines are about a century old.