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With the country facing acute coal shortages, Coal India Ltd (CIL) today moved a step forward with its plans to acquire coal mines abroad by initiating the process of forming a subsidiary in South Africa.
The development follows CIL signing pact with the Limpopo province of South Africa, for jointly identifying, exploring and developing coal mines.
The public sector firm today invited bids for appointing consultants to help it form a wholly-owned subsidiary in Africa.
“Coal India intends to select South Africa based consultant(s) to assist its venture of formation of a wholly-owned subsidiary company,” CIL said in the bids document.
Last year, the Government of Limpopo, the northern province of South Africa, had approached CIL for a joint venture.
The PSU has set aside Rs 6,000 crore for acquisition of mines overseas.
CIL, which accounts for more than 80 per cent of the domestic coal production, missed its revised 2011-12 production target. It achieved only 435.84 million tonne, as against the targeted 447 million tonne. The demand-supply gap of the fossil fuel was 161.5 million tonne last fiscal.
As CIL is about to sign fuel supply agreements, assuring minimum of 80 per cent requirement of power consumers, it wants to improve coal availability both by increasing domestic production and also through overseas sources.
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