Coal secretary for speeding up foreign acquisition

With public sector companies repeatedly failing to acquire overseas assets, new coal secretary Alok Petri is batting for removal of procedural bottlenecks in buying coal blocks abroad.

“We want companies like Coal India Ltd (CIL) or Steel Authority of India Ltd to acquire assets abroad, using huge funds they have. But they have several procedural hurdles and need many one-to-one negotiations to do such a thing. By the time they come to a conclusion, somebody else will go ahead with the acquisition. On the other hand, the private sector has the advantage of over-running this process. Hence, it is upon the government to try and see that this risk factor is reduced,” Petri said on the sidelines of an energy summit here on Saturday.

Kolkata-based CIL’s plans to acquire overseas assets are stuck with the finance ministry. The firm was in talks with Indonesia’s Golden Energy Mines and the United States’ Massey Energy and Peabody Energy for assets. “Once the approval comes, if the offers are not their, we may look for some other assets,” said N C Jha, CMD, CIL.

Petri also hinted that the estimate of the Planning Commission that the country would need nearly 800 million tonnes of coal during the 12th Five Year Plan, was an overestimate.