"International Coal Ventures Ltd (ICVL) is collaborating with RITES (Rail India Technical and Economic Services) for coal mines in Indonesia and Mozambique. The joint team will leave for Indonesia soon," SAIL Chairman C S Verma told reporters here.
As per the understanding between both the PSUs, RITES will prepare the feasibility report on setting up necessary infrastructure for transporting coal mined by ICVL.
Verma is also heading ICVL, a special purpose vehicle set up in 2008 for scouting and acquiring coal assets abroad.
He did not elaborate on the reserves or the location of the mines in both the countries. Last month, Verma had said that the special purpose vehicle is conducting due diligence on some mines based in the US.
ICVL is a consortium of SAIL, Coal India, NMDC, RINL and NTPC. It was formed for the purpose of scouting and acquiring coal mines abroad to bridge the domestic demand-supply gap which at present stands at about 80 million tonnes.
Since its inception, it has not been able to acquire any overseas mines despite having a warchest in excess of Rs 10,000 crore. Recently, it lost out on acquiring a coal mine in Australia.
Meanwhile, RITES which is expanding its footprint worldwide in the engineering and consultancy space, said the company is at present in Africa and is increasing its base in that continent.
Asked if RITES can come out with an IPO in the current fiscal, Railway Board Chairman Vivek Sahai said, "That will depend on how we are going to do in Mozambique and other African countries. The IPO was required for an activity in African nations and we may do it in the proper time when we are sure of the commercial return of our investments in that nations."
He said a separate entity could be created to run the African businesses of RITES.
