Team News Riveting
New Delhi, November 6
Essel Mining and Industries Limited (EMIL), a part of the US$43 billion Aditya Birla emerged as the highest bidder for Radhikapur (East) coal mine in Odisha while Aurobindo Realty and Infrastructure Private Ltd bagged Urma Paharitola mine in Jharkhand.
The two coal mines were put up on the fifth day of commercial coal mine auctions and have total geological coal reserves of 755.63 million tonnes (MT). A total of 17 coal mines have been auctioned till date under the commercial coal mine auctions that began on Monday.
The Radhikapur (East) and Paharitola coal mines have reserves of 176.33 MT and 579.30 MT respectively. The e-auction process has seen strong competition and the two mines received good premiums over and above the floor price. While Radhikapur (East) received a final offer of 16.75 per cent, Paharitola went for 26.50 per cent.
The annual revenue generated based on peak rated capacity of mine is Rs 466.58 crore and Rs 1415.85 crore from Radhikapur (East) and Paharitola respectively.
While a total of 38 coal mines were initially put on auction by the coal ministry, a total of 19 mines are being bid out under the 11th tranche of auction under the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015, located across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Maharashtra. There were initially 76 bids from 42 companies for 23 coal mines, with the remaining 15 mines not getting any bids.
The last day of the auction is expected to be 9 November, with two more coal mines left to be bid out. These are Gondulpara in Jharkhand, and Gare Palma IV/7 in Chhattisgarh.