A day after Jindal Steel & Power engineered a virtual coup by bagging rights to explore Gare Palma IV/2 and 3 at a low price of Rs 108 per tonne, a development that sent its shares soaring 26 percent yesterday, the company suffered an upset by failing to qualify as a bidder for Gare Palma IV/1.
In an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18, JSPL MD and CEO Ravi Uppal said the company was not comfortable with the prices that were being quoted for the mine in question. “We have known that mine intimately as we were operating it for 12 to 14 years. We quoted a price that we were comfortable with. But it did not qualify.”
JSPL had been previously operating blocks IV/1, 2 and 3 and while 2 and 3 (which it won back yesterday) was for the regulated power sector, block 1 was for the unregulated sector (steel, cement and iron).
The minimum floor price for block 1 had been set at Rs 1,561 per tonne. The block previously supplied coal to JSPL’s Raigarh steel project.
Uppal pointed to CNBC-TV18’s interview with coal secretary Anil Swarup yesterday where he cautioned companies from bidding irrationally. “We have to follow a realistic approach. We were not prepared to quote some of the prices that were being quoted. There are a lot of schedule II and III mines in the auction. We will bid for them,” he said.
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