<div>Major coal users may have given a thumbs down to Coal India's offer to import coal for them, but the black gold behemoth has set aside nearly $1 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) to acquire coal assets abroad. This is despite the fact that no coal user has yet given it a mandate to import coal on its behalf. Coal India, incidentally, commits a maximum of 75 per cent of a coal user's requirement from its own mines. For the remaining, it has offered to import coal from international markets.<br /> <br />At present, CIL is spot buying coal from Australia, Indonesia to meet the shortfall in its commitments. It has now also shown interest in African mines. The company is looking to buy mines and develop them in order to meet the ever increasing demand in India. The details of these “talks” are unclear as the agreements are still at the “negotiation” level, says CIL Chairman S Narsing Rao.<br /><br />While refusing to disclose any details of the overseas deals, the CIL chairman at an informal meet with media persons on July 16, confirmed the signing of 3 non-disclosure agreements with Australian firms. He said, “It is premature to comment on the deals as we are still to decide whether we will be buying the coal, developing the mines, what quantity will we be taking etc.” The locations that CIL is negotiating contain 2.4 billion tonnes of coal reserves. The NDAs have been signed with private firms operating in Australia.<br /><br />Meanwhile, a national daily reported senior coal ministry officials confirming CIL is looking to work with the Botswana government to buy mines. The African nation has around 200 billion tonnes of reserves but is also a land-locked nation thus requiring heavy infrastructure development to ease transportation. Additionally, CIL also has recently acquired two blocks in Mozambique.<br /><br /><br /><br />mmatbworld(at)gmail(dot)com<br /> </div>
