Vizag Steel in search for coal mines abroad
Indian steel producer Vizag Steel Plant (VSP) or also known as Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) has reportedly been in negotiations with certain Australian and Canadian companies with the purpose of establishing a joint venture company to own coal mines abroad. The company aims to own coal mines abroad as well as in
India as it suffers from raw material shortage.
The company had to reduce
production for a certain period depending on shortage of coal and coke. VSP aims to buy coal mine abroad not to be dependent on imported material.
It is reported that VSP has recently been in negotiation with Australian mining giant
BHP Billiton to acquire coal mines in
Australia. For the
investments planned to be made in
Australia, VSP set aside a corpus of Rupees 6 billion ($136 million).
VSP also plans to increase capacity from 3 million tons to 10 million tons in the next 15 years. The capacity expansion will be materialized gradually. In the first phase, the capacity of the plant will be increased to 4.7 million tons in three years with an investment of Rupees 26 billion ($588 million). In the second phase, the capacity will be increased to 6.8 million tons by March 2012 with an investment of Rupees 65 billion ($1.47 billion). The final phase includes expansion of capacity to 10 million tons by 2019 with the investment of Rupees 85 billion.