Coal India Invites EoI for Consultants in South Africa

Bangalore: CIL invited expression of interest for appointing consultants to help the coal PSU form a subsidiary in South Africa to acquire mines as it continues to face acute shortage of the fossil fuel. Coal India (CIL) has signed pact with the government of Limpopo, South Africa, for jointly identifying, exploring and developing coal mines. "Coal India intends to select South Africa based consultant(s) to assist its venture of formation of a wholly-owned subsidiary company in South Africa...intereseted companies having relevant experience are hereby invited to submit their request," CIL said. The Expression of Interest (EoI) which opened on August 8 would close on August 29, the company said. The government had said in an official statement in May that to execute the pact which CIL had signed with Limpopo, it would be required to set up a subsidiary in South Africa. In 2011, the government of Limpopo, the northern most province of South Africa, had approached CIL requesting it to form a joint venture with one of its public sector firms for acquiring coal mines there. "The Chief Minister of Limpopo Government had approached us...asking us to form JV with one of its public enterprises for exploring the coal assets. In this JV, CIL will have majority share while the public enterprise of Limpopo will have at least 26 per cent stake," a CIL official had said. The PSU has put together a war-chest of 6,000 crore for acquisition of mines overseas. The world's largest coal miner has zeroed in on three unlisted overseas coal assets for acquisition. CIL, which accounts for more than 80% of the domestic coal production, missed its revised 2011-12 production target. It achieved only 435.84 MT, as against the targeted 447 MT. The demand-supply gap of the fossil fuel was 161.5 million tonne last fiscal.