Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Oct 15, 2008
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Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Oct 15, 2008 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio | Blogs |
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Corporate
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Outlook Gujarat NRE Coke’s Australian arm on growth track
“With steel consumption growing in India, the country would emerge as the largest net importer of coking coal from Australia before long, even overtaking Japan.” G. Srinivasan Russell Vale, New South Wales (Australia), Oct. 14 As India’s coking coal demand mounts, with demand outpacing supply for steel production in the coming years, Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd’s overseas outfit here is converting itself from a single product entity into a global resource entity with core focus on coking coal. Talking to a group of Indian journalists here (whose visit was sponsored by the company) on the company’s coal base in the lush valley colliery, the Chairman of Gujarat NRE Minerals Ltd, Mr Arun Kumar Jagatramka, said the company is set to emerge as one of the largest coking coal producers in Australia over the next few years when production would cross 6 million tonnes a year by 2012 from the current one million tonnes. He said that with steel consumption growing in India, the country would emerge as the largest net importer of coking coal from Australia before long, even overtaking Japan. Industry’s demandFrom a slot of seventh or eighth largest importer of coking coal, India is now getting into the second slot, he added. With eight or nine mines in Jhari coalfields of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd and Tata Steel’s two captive coal mines and the balance met by imports for meeting the steel industry’s demand, India imported 20 million tonnes of coking coal last year, which would go up to 75 million tonnes by 2012. But all this depends on how many of the steel projects currently under the anvil take off, he added. Gujarat NRE Minerals located here is in possession of 500 million tonnes of in situ resource of the finest grade of metallurgical coal with proven coking properties, Mr Jagatramka said, and this is supplemented by the company’s three Indian plants — Khambhalia and Bhachau in Gujarat and Dharwad in Karnataka. Greenfield plant in APHe said the Indian company plans to set up a greenfield plant of one million tonne of coking coal in Andhra Pradesh so that with the existing capacity, the total available coking coal production in the country from the company would reach 4 million tonnes by 2012. Asked about joint venture partnership with other companies in the quest for minerals, Mr Jagatramka ruled out any such plan stating that his company would prefer to remain an independent producer and is happy supplying its material to different steel producers such as Tata Steel, Jindals, Kalyani and any other prospective steel producer. He said the company has tied up for long-term charters with purchase option for four vessels from Japan and two from China of 60,000 tonne capacity, ‘Supermax’, in a bid to secure operational area, leading to control over freight rate fluctuations. Gujarat NRE Minerals to raise $100 m Gujarat NRE ships first load of Australian coking coal to India Gujarat NRE Australian arm lines up A$300-m investment for mining More Stories on : Outlook | Coke & Metalurgical Coke | Overseas Investments
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