In a move that could mar India’s efforts to acquire overseas coal assets, power ministry has approved NTPC’s proposed exit from International Coal Ventures (ICVL) as the latter was promoted by five state-owned firms two years ago to buy coal mines overseas. While Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Coal India own 28% of the stake each of ICVL, NTPC, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam and NMDC own 14% each. However, 14% share of India’s largest power generation utility in the consortium, which hasn’t managed to close a single purchase, is expected to be split proportionately among the remaining partners.
However for NTPC, this development means a focused approach in the pursuit of coal resources as power producer needs thermal coal to fuel its power projects back home, while ICVL’s other stakeholders are largely interested in metallurgical coal reserves to feed their steel mills.
NTPC, which generates 8 megawatts (MW) of every 10MW it produces by burning coal, is looking to increase installed capacity from 34,854MW now to 75,000MW by 2017 and 128,000MW by 2032. It needs 160 million tonnes (mt) of coal in fiscal 2012, of which around 16 mt has to be imported. The power generation utility has already placed orders for importing 12 mt of coal and placed a tender on November 21 to import another 4 mt.
Company Name | CMP |
---|---|
NTPC | 365.70 |
Tata Power | 413.55 |
Power Grid Corp | 337.00 |
Adani Power | 460.75 |
Torrent Power | 1517.70 |
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