Live Mint reported that International Coal Ventures Pvt. Ltd has placed a bid for the coking coal project of Washpool Coal Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Australia’s Aquila Resources Ltd, as the consortium of state run companies seeks to buy its first overseas asset since its formation two years ago.

Mr CS Verma chairman of Steel Authority of India Ltd who also heads ICVL said that “We have bid for Aquila’s project. There are two assets (including Washpool) we are looking at, and one of them is likely to materialize this (financial) year. Both are for hard coking coal.”

Mr Verma said that ICVL’s board approved the commercial bid for the Australian property in October.

While private Indian firms have been successful in securing coal resources from foreign companies, ICVL, which has been pitted against Chinese coal miners such as China Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd and Yanzhou Coal Mining Co. Ltd, has been unable to secure a single property.

Washpool is a Greenfield project with the potential to produce 2.6 million tonnes of hard coking coal from an open cut mine. The miner would also need to build roads.

(Sourced from Livemint.com)