JSW Steel plans to buy a 20% share in an Australian coal mine

JSW Steel plans to buy a 20% share in an Australian coal mine

By FY2025, JSW Steel wants to boost its production capacity to 37 million tonnes annually, and by 2030, it wants to reach 50 MTPA. To do this, it would need more raw resources, such coking coal.

According to people with knowledge of the situation, JSW Steel is in talks to pay between $750 million and $1 billion to purchase a 20 percent share in Australia's Whitehaven Coal's Blackwater coal mine.

One of the biggest open-cut producers of metallurgical coal in the area, the mine is situated in Queensland's Bowen Basin and is projected to generate 14.8 million tonnes of salable metallurgical coal on average per year over the next five years.

JSW Steel has not verified this information.

In an earlier statement, Whitehaven Coal said that it intended to offer global steelmakers a 20 percent share in the mine in order to secure their participation as a strategic joint venture partner.

The corporation has stated that the first round of bids will close in the middle of March, and the winning bidder will be named on or before April 2. Japanese corporate houses and the Indian corporation AvidSys Group, domiciled in Australia, are among the other interested parties. Marubeni, Itochu, and Sojitz.

To safeguard its supply of coking coal, JSW Steel is aggressively seeking to buy mines both locally and abroad. An earlier effort to purchase seventy-five percent of Canadian Teck Resources' metallurgical coal division proved unsuccessful. In order to boost the supply of coking coal, the business is now investigating a number of possibilities, including acquisitions and strategic collaborations.

By FY2025, JSW Steel wants to boost its production capacity to 37 million tonnes annually, and by 2030, it wants to reach 50 MTPA. To do this, it would need more raw resources, such coking coal. The business intends to expand by adding 8.5 MTPA in total this year, increasing its overall capacity from the present 28.2 MTPA to 36.7 MTPA. It presently runs 13 mines, and in 2023, it won two coking coal mines as well as seven iron ore mines in a government auction.