Coal auctions Day Five: Monnet Power wins Odisha block

New Delhi, March 9:

On the fifth day of auctions here on Monday for schedule III category mines whose earlier allotments were cancelled by the apex court, Monnet Power Company won the Utkal-C coal block in Odisha for a bid price of Rs.770 a tonne.

Reserved for the power sector, the Utkal-C block has 123.86 million tonnes of extractable reserves and was previously owned by Utkal Coal Ltd.

The other block on offer on Monday was Lohari in Jharkhand which is reserved for the non-power sector and has 9.045 million tonnes of extractable reserves.

On Sunday, Jaiprakash Cement Corp and Gujarat Ambuja Cement emerged as successful bidders for the Mandla South and Gare Palma coal fields, respectively. GMR won the Ganeshpur mine in Jharkhand with a bid price of Rs.704 a tonne.

Jaypee Cement gave a closing bid of Rs.1,852 per tonne for Mandla South, which has a total extractable reserve of 13.4 million tonnes. Madhya Pradesh State Mining Corp was the previous allottee for the coal block.

In the second round of the auctions, the government has put up 15 blocks which are under the ‘ready-for-production’ category.

The auctions follow the Supreme Court’s decision in September last to cancel the allocation of 204 coal mines allotted between 1993 and 2010.

Under the bidding process, participants are required to submit an initial financial bid along with the technical details. IANS