St. Louis, US-based Peabody Energy, the world's largest private sector coal company, and India's state-run coal miner Coal India have jointly released a statement, saying that the two sides are engaged in a broad range of preliminary discussions to explore long-term coal supplies and other possible cooperative ventures, with no concrete outcomes yet.
Peabody recognizes growing long-term coal demand in India, which may be the world's fastest-growing coal importer, the statement said, adding that the discussions are also unrelated to other potential transactions that Peabody has recently been engaged in.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, Peabody recently made two proposals to take over leading low-volatile metallurgical coal producer Australia-based Macarthur Coal, but was rejected by the Macarthur board each time.