State-run National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), which reported a record net profit this year, is looking to acquire a coking coal mine in Zimbabwe and take-over the entire shareholding of Australia’s Legacy Iron Ore where it already has a controlling shareholding.
“We are planning to acquire the remaining stake in Legacy and may delist the company from the Australian Stock Exchange in the future after the full take-over as there is a lot of compliance-related expenditure,” Amitava Mukherjee, Director (Finance), NMDC, said on Tuesday.
NMDC currently has a majority 78.56 per cent in Legacy Iron Ore Ltd, Australia, which is a Perth-based mining firm. Legacy is carrying out exploration in some 19 exploration tenements in Western Australia for iron ore, gold and base metals, and has also applied for allocation of tenements for tungsten. NMDC had started out by taking a 50 per cent stake in the mining exploration firm in 2011. Mukherjee said that NMDC plans to invest about 10 million Australian dollars (AUD) for the second stage of iron ore exploration quality and quantity tests.
The firm’s officials also say that the mining giant is looking at the possibility of taking up a coking coal mine in Zimbabwe. NMDC already runs a coking/thermal coal mine in Benga, Mozambique, through ICVL.
Meanwhile, the miner has registered a 22 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 4,642 crore in financial year 2018-19 (FY19) as iron ore prices soared to a record five-year high. The company’s turnover for FY19 stood at Rs 12,153 crore against Rs 11,615 crore during FY18, a growth of 5 per cent. However, NMDC’s Profit After Tax (PAT) rose to Rs 4,642 crore against Rs 3,806 crore in FY18, record growth of 22 per cent. NMDC chairman and managing director N Baijendra Kumar said a proposed 3 million tonne steel plant at Nagarnar in Bastar district is expected to be commissioned in the second half of this financial year at a cost of Rs 18,500 crore, of which about Rs 15,400 crore has already been invested.
Officials said that NMDC also planned to expand its existing capacity in the Bailadila iron ore mines to 38 million tones per annum (mtpa) by 2022 from a current 29 mtpa. A new mine at Bailadila will have a mining capacity of 15 mtpa. Along with Donamalai, mining capacity would thus go up from 43 mtpa to 67 mtpa by 2022.