Il & Fs Set To Pick Up 16% In St-Bses Venture

Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) is picking up a 16 per cent stake in ST-BSES Coal Washeries, a joint venture company promoted by the Mumbai-based BSES with Spectrum Technologies and the CLI Corporation of the US. IL&FS plans to invest in the firm through its IL&FS Venture Fund.

Sources said IL& FS is close to cementing the deal for investing around Rs 2 crore in the joint venture firm. Of the Rs 2 crore, Rs 1.6 crore will be towards paid-up capital and the remaining will be a premium of Rs 2.5 per share.

ST-BSES Coal Washeries recently hiked its share capital from Rs 7,000 in 1996-97 to Rs 8.4 crore in 1997-98 to meet project expenditure costs.

IL&FS is picking up the equity on the enhanced share capital, thereby diluting BSES's equity from the present level of 51 per cent.

The joint venture firm has chalked out a blueprint to set up a chain of coal washeries throughout the country to meet substantial the requirement of washed coal. The country requires about 48 million tonne of coal per annum for power, cement and steel industries. The coal washery of ST-BSES at Bilaspur is the first-ever power-grade coal washery project in the private sector.

With an estimated investment of Rs 60 crore, the unit is designed to wash 2.5 million tonne of raw coal per annum.

The Bilaspur washery will receive coal from South Eastern Coalfields and the clean coal, approximately 2 million tonne, will be supplied to BSES's Dahanu power station in Maharashtra and 0.5 million tonne to Associated Cement Companies (ACC). The coal washery, now in advanced stage of completion, is expected to be commissioned within a few weeks. It will reduce the ash content in the raw coal from 40-42 per cent to about 30 per cent in clean coal, which will be supplied to the company's Dahanu project.