Australia expects Indian investment in coking coal

rupesh samant (pti), panaji | 18 February 2010 23:32 IST

Australia expects to gain on India’s appetite for coking coal considering the projections in the steel sector, which indicates an upward trend.

“Coking coal is a major area where India and Australia can have a joint interest. India has a potential to buy the coking coal and we see the potential in terms of exports,” Brad Mullard, executive director, Minerals, Industry and Investment, New South Wales, Australia, told PTI.

The country also anticipates sizeable Indian investment alike from China in the coking coal mining sector, he added.

Mullard was down in Goa to participate in the recently concluded Global steel conference.
He said Indian investments are sought in places like Queensland and NSW, which have coking coal reserves.

Gujarat NRE, India’s premier mining and coke making company, has already invested and achieved production of around 1.5 million tones per annum (MTPA) of coking coal in Australia.

“It (Gujarat NRE) has significantly exported coking coal from Australia. In fact 2012 predictions indicate that the major investment would be from them,” Mullard said.

He stated that Gujarat NRE has been undertaking significant expansion that would further upswing the overall coking coal exports to India.

The statistics by Ahmadabad-based company reveals that the production in Australia is expected to rise to 6 MTPA in about three to four years.

“The company has already invested around 300 million Australian dollars with plans to further invest 500 million Australian dollars for the development of Australian mines,” the company spokesman told during the global steel conference.

Mullard, who represented Australian government, said Australia expects Indian companies to take interest in investment in this sector.

“India’s investment in Australia is in early stages right now, but we predict the growth in the years to come because of the booming steel industry projections here,” he said.

The Australian expert said that it is premature to predict the future growth of the exports and investment from India.

“There has been lot of Chinese investment and we expect to see the same trend wherein lot of Indian companies will also come with investment,” Mullard said.

He said that the ten-year old China market has witnessed sudden upsurge in the last three to six years in terms of investments and exports.

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