Aditya Birla Group’s Hindalco Ltd won the first coal block on day two of the auctions on Sunday. The aluminium maker emerged as the highest bidder for the Kathautia block in Jharkhand with a bid of Rs 2,860 per tonne.
“This would mean Rs 228 crore per annum in revenues for Jharkhand and Rs 6,800 crore for the mine life which is 30 years,” said Coal Secretary, Anil Swarup on Sunday.
Hindalco’s bid beat others Monnet Ispat and Energy Ltd, Rungta Mines, SS Natural Resources and another Aditya Birla Group company UltraTech Cement.
On day two of the coal block auctions three blocks were on offer. These were Belagaon in Maharashtra, Kathautia in Jharkhand and Sarisatolli in West Bengal.
For Belagaon, which is reserved for the non-power sector the list of qualified bidders include Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd (BALCO), Anil Ambani Group's Reliance Cement, Sunflag Iron and Steel and Topworth Urja and Metals.
Sarisatolli has been reserved for the power sector where the lowest bidder will win. The bidders qualified to participate in the financial round includes Adani Power, CESC Ltd, GMR Chhattisgarh Energy, Haldia Energy Ltd and Sheesham Commercial.
Anil Ambani Group's Reliance Cement and GMR Group won the two blocks on offer on the first day of coal auctions.
Reliance Cement won the first coal block after it emerged as the highest bidder for the Sial Ghoghri mine in Madhya Pradesh which has 5.61 million tonne of reserves.
GMR's subsidiary GMR Chhatisgarh Energy won the Talabira I block. The blocks reserved for the power sector where the lowest bidder is the winner and GMR's bid of Rs 478 per tonne was the winning bid.
“Bidding for Sial Ghogri has just finished and the winning bid is for Rs 1,402 per tonne. The winning bidder will have to pay that amount for extracting each tonne of coal to the Madhya Pradesh State Government,” Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy Minister, Piyush Goyal said on Saturday.
It has an annual peak rated capacity of 0.3 million tonne per annum. The premium paid over the floor price was Rs 37.56 crore per annum. Over the entire mine life, the Madhya Pradesh State Government will get Rs 797.74 crore of revenue which is a premium of Rs 712.39 crore over the floor price of the block. The prior allottee was also a cement maker called Prism Cement.
Auctioning of coal blocks began on Saturday with two mines -- Sial Ghoghri in Madhya Pradesh and Talabira I in Odisha.
Talabira-I, reserved for the power sector has 33.84 million tonne of mineable reserves and the qualified bidders were the likes of Adani Power, Essar Power, GMR Chhattisgarh Energy, OPG Power Generation and Sesa Sterlite.
Sial Ghoghri is for the non-regulated sector and the bidders who participated in the auction are Hindustan Zinc, OCL Iron and Steel and Anil Ambani Group's Reliance Cement. The block has 5.61 million tonne of reserves.
After the technical stage, 134 bidders were eligible to participate in the financial rounds. Saturday is the first day of the financial bid rounds.