The Indian government will auction six coking coal blocks for captive consumption of Indian steel producers, a senior government official said on Friday, April 14.
The government official said that, while the government has auctioned several thermal coal blocks over the past few years, this will be the first time that coking coal assets will be put up for allocation through the auction route for domestic steel companies to bid.
However, no information is available on the total estimated reserves of the six blocks proposed to be put up for auction, with the official claiming that geological details will only be available once the auction documents are ready for prospective bidders.
The official said that, following the auction of these blocks, the import dependency of domestic steel mills in sourcing the critical raw material will be partially mitigated.
During the April 2016-January 2017 period, Indian steel companies imported around 35 million mt of coking coal. Coal India Limited, the sole domestic supplier of the fuel produced 55 million mt of coking coal in the last fiscal year and expects to increase this to 59 million mt in the current fiscal year.