State-owned Hindustan Copper, the country’s only copper miner, is planning to participate in the mine auction process – starting in the next two to three months – to acquire critical minerals and rare earth elements (REE) blocks.

The company plans to bid for these blocks along with other PSU’s like Indian Oil Corporation, GAIL (India) and RITES as part of its diversification plans. The copper miner is also looking at acquisition opportunities of critical minerals and rare earth elements overseas in association with these major public sector entities.

“We are going to participate in the auctions of mines that will be launched by the Ministry of Mines and State governments. We are working on that. We have already done a lot of due diligence of the blocks,” Hindustan Copper Ltd Chairman & Managing Director, Sanjiv Kumar Singh, told businessline.

Domestic and overseas assets

The Ministry of Mines and State governments may launch auctions of more critical mineral blocks in the coming two to three months. The company stated against the query that it is now difficult to say for how many blocks it will participate in the auctions going ahead.

“For the purpose of acquiring new assets, we are looking at not only copper blocks, but also critical minerals and rare earth blocks both in India and overseas. We will be participating in the auctions of the critical mineral and rare earth blocks in near future,” Singh said.

The tranche V auction of critical and strategic mineral blocks, which was launched in January, witnessed the successful auction of 10 out of 15 blocks. These 10 blocks comprise critical and strategic minerals such as graphite, phosphorite, phosphate, rare earth elements, vanadium, and for the first time, potash and halite. With this, the total number of blocks auctioned by the Central government has reached 34.

Hindustan Copper (HCL) operates copper mines in Malanjkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Khetri, Rajasthan and Ghatsila, Jharkhand.

Entering pacts

HCL executed an MoU with RITES Ltd. earlier this month to secure a rapid, reliable and sustainable supply chain of metals and minerals, including critical minerals. The main objective of this MoU is to jointly participate in copper, critical minerals block auctions, develop and operationalise blocks for exploration and mining, and transportation, and share associated risks.

“For the rare earth elements, we are also looking at overseas opportunities. We have already seen Africa and Latin America. RITES Ltd has got a good presence in Latin America. They have a presence in Africa as well. We’ll get synergy with them,” Singh said, and added that the possible overseas acquisition of critical mineral and rare earth assets would be through a partnership with public sector entities, on a case-to-case basis.

“The overseas acquisition of blocks will be on a G2G basis. HCL will also be signing MoUs with Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. and GAIL (India) Ltd, very shortly “ he said. The company also plans to enter into a pact with Coal India Ltd (CIL) for taking part in activities pertaining to copper & other critical minerals exploitation which will be carried out at Chile, the CMD said

The company is looking to ramp up copper production as demand for the metal has been witnessing a surge.

A delegation from CODELCO (Corporación Nacional del Cobre), copper mining company of Chile, has also arrived in India. It will visit Hindustan Copper’s mines and share its recommendations to address the operational difficulties that the company is faced with in these mines. “We may form a JV with CODELCO going ahead,” Singh added.

The company is aiming at producing more than 4 million tonnes of copper ore this fiscal. It has plans to increase the production to around 12 million tonnes of ore by financial year 2030-31.

Published on June 23, 2025