Indian trade unions stall legislative reforms

In the face of stiff opposition from trade unions, the Indian government would not be pushing ahead with amending the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, enabling all private and public Indian companies to mine coal in the country. The Coal Mines...

Indian Ministers meet to unravel coal gridlock

A high-powered group of Indian ministers would be meeting at the beginning of March in an attempt to break the gridlock over coal projects stalled by environmental regulations. Headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the meeting has assumed...

CIL pushed to finalise 20-year coal imports

The Indian government has compelled Coal India Limited (CIL) to make arrangements to import coal in order to ensure a 20-year mandatory supply for 50 000 MW of power generation, which was schedule to come on stream by March 2015. Compelling CIL...

India set to map forest cover and ban mining in restricted areas

India’s Forest and Environment Ministry would start an initiative to map forest regions across the country in order to identify ‘inviolate areas’ where mining would be banned. “We are putting together all government notifications and...

NMDC fast-tracks $900m investments during 2012/13

India’s largest iron-ore miner NMDC Limited has decided to fast-track investments worth $900-million during 2012/13 in an effort to better invest the company’s free cash reserves of almost $3.6-billion. The investments would be aimed at...

Coal India fails to clinch overseas assets despite $1.9bn corpus

Despite setting aside a corpus of $1.9-billion for 2011/12, Coal India Limited (CIL) has not been successful in acquiring any overseas coal assets. However, the world’s largest coal miner was rushing to spend at least $817-million by March this...

India permits NMDC to resume supplies to Japan, S Korea

The Indian government has permitted the country’s largest iron-ore miner NMDC Limited to resume negotiations for long-term agreements with steel mills in Japan and South Korea, as well as to commit to iron-ore exports at least until 2014. The...

India's private sector falls behind on coal development

Indian companies in the private sector have been tardy in developing captive coal blocks allotted to them and would achieve no more than 20% of the estimated coal production from these blocks by March 2012. Private sector companies had been...

Indian consortium seeks govt funding for Afghan iron reserves

A consortium of Indian companies bidding for the development of the 1.8-billion ton Hajigak iron-ore reserves in Afghanistan is looking for $600-million in funding support from the Indian government. The consortium has also proposed setting up a...

Indian government refuses to lower coal production target despite shortfall

The Indian government has turned down a proposal from Coal India Limited (CIL) to lower production target from 458-million tons to 440-million tons during 2011/12. CIL, the world’s largest coal miner, had sought government approval for lower...

India’s power generator seeks coal assets in South Africa

After pulling out from the race for Australian coal miner Bandanna Energy, India’s largest thermal power producer NTPC Limited is seeking to acquire coal assets in South Africa. Simultaneously, to cope with shortage of coal feedstock from...

Indian miners subverting environmental compliance - Ministry

The Indian Forest and Environmental Ministry on Monday said that it was becoming increasingly common that companies undertook mining projects in India without prior environmental clearance. The clearance applications were submitted before...