Mumbai, Oct, 29 (EPC News): JSW Steel, India’s third largest producer of steel in India has considered going for bidding with Australian coal producer, ‘New Hope’. This proposed coal bid is supposed to be valued A$5 billion ($5.2 billion).
Buying New Hope, which operates the Acland coal mine in Queensland, based in Ipswich, would give JSW thermal-coal mines and an export terminal.
JSW needs coking coal for its steel operations and thermal coal to run its energy unit's operational and upcoming power plants in India, said the people. Manish Kalghatgi, spokesman at JSW Steel, said there was no proposal at this stage.
JSW, which imports almost all the coal it needs to fire its 2,330 megawatts plants, faced a doubling of raw-material costs in the year ended March as floods in Australia pushed up coal prices and fuel consumption increased with the addition of generation capacity. It plans to import 7 million to 8 million tonnes of coal this year, Lalit Kumar Gupta, chief executive officer of the energy unit, said in an interview.
"The New Hope asset is very big and will help the energy unit of JSW to secure raw material. It will be a huge task for someone like JSW to raise money for such an asset," said Abhisar Jain, an analyst at Centrum Broking in Mumbai.
Globally, coal deals have reached $32.1 billion this year against $21.8 billion in the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
JSW shares rose 1% to Rs586.25 at the close in Mumbai. The stock has plunged 50% this year, compared with a 17% drop in the benchmark BSE. New Hope closed up 1.7% in Sydney trading, valuing the company at A$5 billion.
EPC News Bureau
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epcworld
| Posted on:10/29/2011 at 6:01 AM