By IANS,
Kolkata : Metallurgy coke producer Gujarat NRE Coke plans to invest Rs.800-1,000 crore for a plant in Andhra Pradesh, a top company official said Thursday.
“We are waiting for the land. We plan to build a one-million-tonne coke plant over there with 60 megawatt (MW) power capacity,” Arun Kumar Jagatramka, managing director, told reporters here.
The project work is expected to begin by December 2010 and end in 2013, he said.
With commissioning of the new coke plant, the production capacity of the company would touch 2.25 million tonnes.
About coking coal prices, he said prices would touch $240-250 per tonne during the second quarter (July-September) from $200 per tonne now.
About low-ash metallurgical (LAM) coke, he said high demand would push up the price which is around $500-550 a tonne now.
The company produced 900,000 tonnes of LAM coke last fiscal and is expecting to produce 1.1 million tonnes this year.
Jagatramka expected the turnover of the company to touch Rs.2,000 crore in the current fiscal (2010-11) from around Rs.1,500 crore in 2009-10.
Asked how much the Australian operations of the company will be hampered as the government there plans to introduce a 40 percent Resource Super Profits Tax on big mining companies that have benefited from burgeoning Chinese and Indian demand for minerals and energy, he said: “It is a draft proposal. It will take another 6-9 months for the blueprint to be ready.”
“Our company will not be affected as such as we would get deductions for capital investments,” he added.