Monnet Ispat acquires coal mine in Indonesia

Monnet Ispat and Energy has bought a 100-million tonne coal mine in Indonesia, sources say. The announcement is likely to be made on Monday.

An official close to the deal told Business Standard, “The company has been in serious talks for the past 5 months to buy a 100-million tonne thermal coal mine in Indonesia. The acquisition is now complete and the announcement will happen on Monday.”

The official said the company has been looking at 4-5 coal mines in Indonesia and zeroed on this particular mine after careful inspection and due diligence. Company sources did not comment for the story.

Monnet Group's power projects fall under its subsidiary, Monnet Power Company. The subsidiary is currently setting up a 1050-Mw power plant in Angul, and has captive coal mines to feed the plant. The plant is expected to be operational by the third quarter of 2012. The company is also setting up additional 2,000-Mw power projects by June, 2014. Of the 2,000 Mw, two super critical power projects with the rated capacity of 2 x 660 Mw, equal to 1320 Mw, would come up and would be fed with imported coal.

Another source said the company has firmed up plans to increase its power generation capacity and to complement the plan, has been on the look-out for coal mines. The company has two power plants in Chhattisgarh — in Raigarh and Raipur, each with a combined capacity of 250 Mw. Monnet plans to ramp up the capacity to 500 Mw in two years and would need more coal to run the plant. The official said, “Currently, our coal mine in Chhatisgarh is producing 1 million tonne of coal and there is a plan to increase it up to 1.5 million tonne. Our total coal requirement for the Chhattisgarh power plants is currently 2.5-3 million tonne and the shortfall is met from the open market.” He said after the capacity is increased to 500 Mw, the company would need 5 million tonne of coal per year.