NEW DELHI: Mahanadi Coalfield Limited (MCL), a subsidiary of Coal India, is diversifying its businesses by venturing into power generation and aluminum business.
The company will invest Rs 12,000 crore in Odisha to set up a coal-based power plant; and will set up Greenfield aluminum. “We are in the process of diversifying our business.. one is power generation. We have bought one Mahanadi Basin Power Ltd, we are in the process of starting to integrate power projects. We have already got all the clearances.
The power purchase agreement is in the process of getting finalised with a few states power,” said Chairman-cum-managing Director O P Singh, in an interaction at Sambalpur, Odisha. Singh further said another business it is venturing into is aluminum mining. He said the company is in the process of mining aluminum ore, bauxite, and then converting it to alumina and then into aluminum.
The tentative size of the mine would be 3 million tonnes (MT) per annum. “We are in the process of getting bauxite blocks allotted to us. Also, we are going to request the government to give us allocation on nomination basis,” said Singh. The Sambalpur-headquartered firm is aimed to achieve 190 MT of coal production in FY23.
This will be 13.09% more than what (168MT) the company produced in last fiscal. At the same time, the firm in the next fiscal FY24 expects to dispatch 200 MT of coal to consumers. “Our production target was 176 MT in 2022-23. However, we are already 21% ahead of the target and expect to reach 190 MT by the end of this fiscal,” said the Chairman.