A total of 59 companies, including JSW Steel, NTPC, Vedanta and Ultratech Cement, have cumulatively placed 96 bids under the latest tranche of auctions for commercial coal blocks covering 36 mines.

As part of the auction process, the technical bids comprising of online and offline bid documents were opened on Tuesday in the presence of the bidders, Coal Ministry said in a statement.

In November last year, the government launched the auction process for allotting 141 coal and lignite mines, which includes 133 blocks for the sixth round and 8 for the second attempt of the fifth round.

A total of 96 bids were received under two tranches of commercial coal mine auctions, which is the highest ever bids received since the launch of commercial coal mines’ auction in June 2020, the Ministry added.

Bid stats

In terms of coal blocks, the highest number of bids were received for the Gare Palma Sector IV/ 2 & IV/3 block from 15 companies (6th Tranche). It is followed by Namchik Namphuk block (6 bids) under the 6th Tranche.

While, five bids each were received for Banai Bhalumuda block (6th tranche) and Datima (2nd attempt of 5th Tranche), four companies each placed bids for Arjuni East (6th Tranche), Burapahar (6th Tranche) and Marwatola VII block (6th Tranche).

Three bids each were received for Dongeri Tal II (2nd attempt of 5th Tranche), Marwatola VI (6th Tranche), Gondbahera Ujheri (6th Tranche), Gare Plama Sector I East (6th Tranche), Binja (6th Tranche) and Burakhap Small Patch (6th Tranche).

In terms of companies, the highest number of bids at nine were placed by Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) followed by Assam Mineral Development Corporation (six bids) and JSW Steel (5 bids).

Furthermore, three bids were placed each by Ambuja Cement and Jindal Power. While, Ultratech, NLC India and Damodar Valley Corporation have placed two bids each, NTPC, JSPL, Vedanta, JSW Cemnt, Dalmia Cement (Bharat) have placed a single bid each.

Tranche-wise bids

Under the sixth tranche of auctions, a total of 86 bids (online and offline) were received against 32 coal mines and three bids were received only offline, the Ministry said.

Two or more bids have been received for 25 coal mines—79 bids (both online and offline) against 25 coal mines and 7 coal mines have received single bids (both online and offline), it added.

Of these 32 coal mines, 10 coal mines are partially explored whereas 22 are fully explored. The cumulative Peak Rate Capacity (PRC) of the fully explored coal mines is 85.62 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) and 31 coal mines are non-coking coal mines whereas one is coking coal mine.

Under the second attempt of the fifth tranche, a total of 8 coal mines were put up for auction and 10 bids have been received against four coal mines where two or more bids have been received for two coal mines and single bids have been received for two coal mines.

All these four coal mines are fully explored coal mines and 2 coal mines are coking coal mines and 2 are non-coking coal mines. The PRC of these 4 coal mines is 4.34 MTPA.

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