Coal India Wins Mozambique Coal Slots

Mozambique has awarded two coal acreages in its Maotize region with an estimated one billion tonne reserves to Coal India Ltd but has yet to nominate the local entity which will partner the Indian state-run firm for prospecting and subsequent mining, the Cabinet was informed earlier this month.

According to government sources, CIL has to form a joint venture with a local partner who will be identified by that country's government for the concessions, identified as A1 and A2. CIL and its local partner will later have to shed 15% equity in the joint venture in favour of the Mozambique government, which cannot be brought down below 10%. Mozambique has also asked CIL to open an office in the national capital Maputo and train manpower.

For Block A1, CIL will make a refundable deposit of $2.1 million and pay $950,000 during the first five years of exploration phase and $15.25 million after five years during the mining phase. For Block A2, CIL will make a refundable deposit of $620,000, $330,000 in the exploration phase and over $5 million after five years.

CIL had won the blocks against nine other bidders. While one bid each from the UK and China were disqualified, there were three bids each from Portugal and Mozambique besides four from India. Block A1 covers an area of 109 sq km and Block A2 115 million. From preliminary studies, CIL reckons about 20% of the deposits to be coking coal and the remaining is expected to be good for using as fuel in power plants.

CIL is aiming to ensure a committed volume of around 20-30 million tonnes of coal from overseas which will be equal to about 50 million tonnes of domestic production. CIL has a cash pile of $6-7 billion. Since it can fund its future domestic expansion from internal accruals, it wants to use part of this reserve in getting equity in overseas mines.

CIL is also processing a plan for firming strategic partnerships with global majors and has shortlisted 12 firms, including Peabody of the US and Indonesia's Bumi. Some eight companies have made their presentations earlier this month. Four more are to make their proposals shortly.

One of the models that CIL is looking at could be that Coal India takes 10-15% equity in a producing mine or upto 25% in expanded capacity of an existing mine. In return, it will get captive right on a certain quantity of production. For CIL, such a partnership will ensure long-term volumes to bridge domestic supply gap and help it to cushion against price volatility.

The company had to import 59 million tonnes of coal when prices were at their peak of $60-65 per tonne of thermal coal. It will also help the company to achieve capacity targets quickly as expansion in India is hampered by the fact that most coal-bearing areas are inhabited and entail massive relief and rehabilitation of population.

Source: Times Of India