Communication - Presse
India’s JSW steel to buy coal mine in Tete, Mozambique
The Indian multinational JSW Steel has approved the acquisition of Minas de Revuboe (MDR), a mining company based in the central Mozambican province of Tete, in order to secure supplies of high-quality coking coal used for steel production.
According to the Indian news agency “IANS”, the Sajjan Jindal-led company said in an investor presentation that its subsidiary JSW Natural Resources Limited will buy a 92.19 per cent equity stake and shareholders loans of MDR for 73.75 million dollars.
The deal will give the Indian steel company access to premium hard-coking coal reserves in Mozambique. MDR owns a high-quality and large-scale pre-development stage premium hard-coking coal mine project in the Moatize Basin, in Tete.
“The deal is subject to approval from Mozambique’s Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy and other applicable approvals”, reads the statement.
Indian steel companies consume around 70 million tonnes of coking coal annually, and imports constitute around 85 per cent of the country’s total requirement, as the commodity is not available in the country in sufficient quantity. Coking coal to India is imported from Australia, Indonesia, Russia, the USA and Canada.
However, there has been a spike in prices of coking coal in recent months which has been impacting the bottom lines of the steel companies.
