JSPL to divest 10% stake in Jindal Power IPO in FY10

Q: For Rocklands Richfield your bid is a part of consortium. Is it not?

A: Not really a part of consortium, we are bidding on our own there. So we will have to wait for the outcome.

Q: Any option of putting more than 10% up in the IPO for the power business?

A: It's very difficult to comment but right now we are looking around this much only and let's see what happens going forward as we firm our plan. We will know exactly probably in next one month time that what we plan to do about the IPO and we will know more definitely about various things of IPO within next 30 days' time.  

Q: Can you give us an update on what's going on in Bolivia? Has production started there? By which quarter should one expect to see iron ore sales being booked by JSPL from Bolivia?

A: In Bolivia, mining has already started, the production is already on. Now we are planning to sell the iron ore also in the market, have small quantity in the Latin market and international market also. We are discussing with various potential buyers for this and I hope that should happen very shortly. We still have some time to go for this quarter, so it may happen in this quarter or the next quarter in small quantities to begin with.

Q: Some booking of revenues in the January-March quarter of 2010 looks very likely from Bolivia and when you say small quantity, what could it be in the region of ballpark?

A: It's very difficult to comment right now until it really happens because normally in such a large operation, everything is done in a systematic and planned manner. We are not planning to sell a small quantity of iron ore in the long run; it's going to be a big quantity. So everything has to be planned--the mine production, the exit, and transit. Everything has to be planned to ultimately take care of larger quantity. There maybe initial hiccups so it maybe a smaller quantity. However, it's difficult to comment as what will be the actual quantity but should happen in this financial year.

Q: The bulk of your revenues come in from the steel business. What is it that you are working with in terms of volume offtake for the rest of this financial year and there are indications that prices are softening out a bit. Are you working with that assumption that prices maybe move a bit lower?

A: Prices are more or less stable and little softening has taken place in very recent past but we feel that the prices will remain more or less stable going forward in the rest part of the year and we are also trying to augment our production. So we should be able to comfortably compensate softening of the steel prices with the higher volume. However, let's see which way the year ends but we are hoping that we should be able to maintain our performance.

Q: For now what is your volume target?

A: We do not fix any target as such and we do not fix any revenue target. It all depends on the market and how much we can produce but generally we never shutdown any production facility because our cost of production is low. So whatever we produce we make contribution on that. Thus, whatever production is there we will try and achieve the maximum production and sell in the market. But we normally do not fix any target on there.

Q: There was an indicated number of around 200 million tonne for fiscal year 2010. Do you think it will cross that?

A: I do not want to comment on the numbers but we will do better than last year in volume terms.