INDIA-MONGOLIA 2

The mine and volumes of the coal expected of it will be identified after the pact is in place, Verma said. This will be the first attempt by India to break away from the excessive dependence of Australian coking coal, which has become too costly in recent years pushing up the cost of steel production to very high level in India. "India is importing 35 MT of coking coal every year about 60 to 70 per cent from Australia which is close to India and the rest from US and New Zealand," Verma said. Considering India plans to expand steel production from the current 80 MT to 200 MT by 2020, it is looking to get coking coal securitisation, as there were no quality coking coal mines at home. It has become very important as to produce one tonne of steel requires 0.9 tonne of coking coal. The consumption of coking coal in India is roughly about 35-40 MT of which about 12-15 MT available in India. But it is not very good quality but medium grade soft coking coal, Verma said. About 30-35 MT is imported in India every year. Of which SAIL is imports about 14 MT. "We have to acquire mines outside India as we do not have coking coal mines in India. The expansion and capacity addition is going to happen in India mostly on the blast furnace route only for which coking coal is required more," he said. Though the newer technologies are coming up, they would take a long time to emerge he said referring to talks with POSCO to set up furnace based steel plants. "But mostly expansion will happen in blast furnace route which requires coking coal," he said.

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