Steel makers bid for commercial coal mines: 40% of mines get no response

Steel Insights Bureau

Commercial coal mining auction has received lukewarm response from the private sector with the Tata group and also foreign investors staying away although there was good amount of interest from steel makers who have been importing coal.

Overall, out of 38 mines put on auction, bids were received for only 23 coal mines or 60 percent of total.

Technical Bids for the 11th tranche of auction of Coal Mines under CM (SP) Act, 2015 and 1st Tranche of auction of Coal Mines under MMDR Act, 1957 was opened on September 30 at The Ashok Hotel in New Delhi following which the bidders’ details were made available.

Key takeaways from bidders’ list

♦ Steel companies that rely on imports to meet their coal requirements have bid like JSPL (2 bids), JSW Steel (1 bid), Sunflag Iron & Steel and Welspun Steel (1 bid)

♦ Participation from logistics, real estate companies and traders. With bid qualification relaxed and coal mining and sales decontrolled, there was significant response from such non-traditional players, experts believe\

♦ Adani Group was the largest bidder with 12 bids through its various arms

♦ All three primary aluminium producers Hindalco, Nalco and Balco have bid as the auction has allowed concurrent bidding for coal as well as bauxite mines as well

♦ There was no participation from foreign companies or Tata group.

The bids will be evaluated by a multidisciplinary Technical Evaluation Committee and Technically Qualified Bidders would be shortlisted for participation in the electronic auction to be conducted on MSTC portal from October 19.

The online bids were decrypted and opened electronically in the presence of the bidders. Subsequently, sealed envelopes containing offline bid documents were also opened in the presence of bidders. The entire process was displayed on the screen for the bidders.