Jindal Group has once again emerged the top bidder for the Gare-Palma-IV/1 coal mine in Chhattisgarh. The mine was bagged by Jindal Power on the third day of the commercial coal mine auctions on Wednesday.
Under the commercial coal mining bid rounds, companies are competing on the share of revenue they would part with the State government to bag a coal mine. There is no end-use restriction on the coal excavated from these mines. Five mines were auctioned on Monday (November 2), four on Tuesday, and three on Wednesday. The remaining will be auctioned by November 9. In all, the Ministry of Coal wants to auction 19 mines for commercial coal mining.
The Jindal Group emerging the top bidder for the Gare-Palma-IV/1 mine comes a year after Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) bid the highest for it in the November 2019 coal mine auctions.
Those auctions were conducted with an end-use clause — the coal extracted had to be utilised at a predefined source. The sale of coal in the open market was disallowed in that auction.
But despite the highest bid during auctions, the Centre had not awarded the mine to JSPL, saying that the bid price was too low and eventually the coal mine went back to Coal India.
Jindal Power outbid Adani Enterprises and Hindalco Industries this time. The mine has 84.262 million tonnes of geological reserves and Chhattisgarh stands to annually gain ₹652.10 crore, at peak-rated capacity of 6 million tonnes per annum, from the auction of this mine.
Highest bid
In another noteworthy development on Wednesday, the Gotitoria (East) and Gotitoria (West) coal mines were bagged by Boulder Stone Mart. These two mines were jointly auctioned and the relatively new company has offered to share 54 per cent revenue with the Madhya Pradesh government. This is the highest bid till now for any mine during the commercial coal mining auction rounds.
Boulder Stone Mart outbid Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation, Bansal Construction Works, Dilip Buildcon, Inspire Construction and Coal, Mahavir Clean Fuel Mining, ND Pharma, and Net Energy. This was the most hotly contested mine on Wednesday despite its much lesser geological reserves at 7.452 million tonnes.
The Coal Ministry had tried to jointly bid the Gotitoria (East) and Gotitoria (West) coal mines in December 2014. These mines were earmarked under the Iron & Steel, Cement and Captive Power Plants end-use category.
The Urtan North coal mine, also in Madhya Pradesh, was awarded to JMS Mining at a final offer of 9.50 per cent revenue share. This has been the lowest bid value at which a mine auction has closed under the commercial mining regime. JMS Mining was contesting with Stratatech Mineral Resources (a wholly owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises) for the Urtan mine.
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