Coal news and updates

Auction to go on, qualified bidders list soon: Coal secy

Clarifying there is no setback to coal auction process, despite the Delhi High Court order to remove two Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL) blocks from auction, coal secretary Anil Swarup told mediapersons that the removed blocks were not part of the 23 being bid out in the first phase.

Clarifying there is no setback to coal auction process, despite the Delhi High Court order to remove two Jindal Steel & Power Ltd ( JSPL ) blocks from auction, coal secretary Anil Swarup told mediapersons that the removed blocks were not part of the 23 being bid out in the first phase. A total of 5 blocks will be excluded from the auction process due to HC orders, he said.

On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court prevented the sale of two mines of JSPL which were previously reserved for non-regulated industries (steel and cement) but later shifted to the regulated sector (power). The committee handling the auction process had changed the end use of about 20 coal blocks to the power sector, which straightaway barred previous owners from bidding for the blocks. JSPL had challenged the decision to alter the end use of its Gare Palma IV/6 and Utkal B1 and B2 mines in Chhattisgarh and Odisha, saying it had invested more than over USD 4.80 billion in setting up plants fed by the mines.

Post the order, there were murmurs that it could lead to more litigations which in turn could derail the auction process.Swarup, however, said the government is yet to decide on knocking the doors of Supreme Court against the high court order.

Swarup said the government will appoint custodians for those mines which could not be auctioned till March 31. "If we are unable to complete auctions by March 2015 then a GOI custodian will carry out mining," he said adding as of now there has been no provision to strike down ordinance.

The coal secretray said so far the government has received 86 qualified bids for 19 unregulated mines and 48 qualified bids for regulated sector. A total of 110 blocks are to be auctioned and full list of all qualified bidders will be released soon.

In October last year, the Supreme Court had cancelled 214 coal blocks, following which the government had said it would hold auctions and invited bids from companies based on their end-use in power, steel or cement.

Source: Moneycontrol