MEC Coal in talks with Indian companies to supply coal

MEC Coal, a joint venture of Dubai-based Trimex Group and Ras Al Khaimah Government, is in talks with two privately owned Indian power companies to ensure a long term off-take from its upcoming coal mine in East Kalimantan province of Indonesia, according to a senior company official.

MEC Holding is a subsidiary of Trimex that owns 50 per cent of MEC Coal.

MEC Coal is expected to reach a deal with the two companies by March this year, Executive Vice-Chairman of MEC Holdings Madhu Koneru told Emirates Business.

“The target we had was January 30, but now it has been delayed to March 30,” Koneru said. The company plans to begin coal exports by the beginning of 2012 and besides India will try to ink deals in China, Koneru said. The company also plans to supply six million tones of coal annually to a $4 billion (Dh14.69bn) aluminium smelter being built by Nalco, India-owned company, near MEC Coal’s mine in Indonesia.

Declining to name the Indian companies, Koneru said these are private players in a largely government dominated thermal power sector in India. While MEC Coal intends to reach a long-term “offtake” agreement with one of the companies, it will be entering into a swap deal with the other wherein MEC Holdings will take a stake in the India- based power plant of the company and the company concerned will take a stake in MEC’s coal mine in Indonesia. “While one will be a clean offtake deal, the other will be a swap agreement,” Koneru said in a media roundtable.

MEC Coal has acquired coal mines spreading over 5,000 hectares of land in Indonesia. MEC Infra, another JV?of Trimex Group and RAK Government, has also acquired 400,000 hectares for the construction of a 130km railway track and road.

Farmland

The UAE’s Minerals Energy Commodities Holding (MEC) is in talks with Indonesia to lease around 100,000 hectares of farmland, the firm’s Vice-Chairman said.

Gulf countries, mainly reliant on food imports, have ramped up efforts to buy land in developing nations such as Pakistan, the Philippines and Ethiopia to secure food supplies. “In that area there is about 400,000 hectares of available land to lease and we are planning to lease around 100,000 hectares of that,” Madhu Koneru said.

The land will be used for the production of rice, sugar cane and fruits.

 

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