By IANS,
New Delhi : The government Thursday allowed the state-owned Coal India to import coking coal and high grade ash thermal coal by acquiring coal properties abroad or overseas joint ventures.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) authorised an Empowered Committee of Secretaries (ECS) to look into Coal India’s proposal to import coking coal for meeting domestic demand.
The ECS had been constituted earlier to consider proposals by International Coal Ventures, a special purpose vehicle set up jointly by five state-owned companies – Steel Authority of India, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam, power utility NTPC, National Mineral Development Corp and Coal India – for acquiring coal properties abroad.
“Since India does not have enough reserves of metallurgical and high grade coal to meet the projected gap between demand and supply, efforts are being made to secure resources abroad from where long term supply of coal at reasonable prices could be assured,” the coal ministry said in a statement Thursday.
India’s demand for coal has outpaced supply from indigenous sources, and is expected to increase to about 731 million tonnes by 2011-12 from 474 million tonnes, it said.
As a short-term strategy for immediate returns, Coal India aims to establish joint ventures or equity participation with companies engaged in mining meteorological coal and/or low ash thermal coal.
Over the medium term, it would explore equity participation in greenfield projects while over the long term Coal India plans to acquire or lease coal blocks.
Incidentally, Mozambique, in southeastern Africa, has awarded two coal blocks to the company for carrying out exploration and future mine development.