State-owned Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL) is set to enter into a joint venture agreement with Mineral Exploration Corporation Ltd (MECL) and National Aluminium Company Ltd (Nalco) to get into exploration and exploitation of strategic minerals.

According to Santosh Sharma, CMD, HCL, a joint venture company named KABIL — Khanij Bidesh India Ltd — will be formed to explore and exploit rare metals such as titanium, gallium and rhenium.

These minerals find use in defence equipment, spacecraft and shipbuilding.

"Our board has approved the joint venture proposal, so has the board of MECL.

Once the Nalco board approves the proposal, a company will be formed to deal in the area of strategic minerals," Sharma told newspersons at a press conference here on Friday.

The joint venture company will primarily deal with government-to-government businesses. The company is also in the process of investing close to ₹200 crore for extracting precious metals such as gold and silver from its copper tailings or the copper left behind after extraction from the ore.

The plant will come up at Malanjkhand in Madhya Pradesh, Sharma said.

Net profit zooms “If we process 10,000 tonnes of copper tailings a day we can get close to 1.1 kg of gold and 11 kg of silver a day," he pointed out.

Meanwhile, riding on the back of a higher volume and value sales, HCL's net profit jumped more than four times to ₹28.55 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2017, against ₹6.77 crore in the same period last year.

Revenue from operations was up by 187 per cent to ₹519 crore (₹181 crore) during the quarter under review.

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