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Country's largest manganese ore producer MOIL Ltd has earmarked Rs 500 crore for mining assets' buy abroad.
The company, earlier known as Manganese Ore (India) Ltd, is also ramping up its domestic capacity to meet the growing need from the local steel industry with an estimated investment of Rs 1,200 crore in phases.
"MOIL Ltd is scouting for acquisition of mining assets abroad and has earmarked a sum of Rs 500 crore for this purpose," the state-run firm said in a recent communique to the Steel Ministry.
MOIL Ltd's Chairman and Managing Director G P Kundargi could not be contacted for further details, but a source said it has been on the look out for mines in various geographies, including Australia and New Zealand.
Kundargi was part of a delegation, led by Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma, that visited these two countries in January this year to strengthen ties in areas of mining and coal supply.
"There has not been much progress on acquisition front. MOIL's talks with the prospective targets are at a very nascent stage and it may take some few months from here to take any concrete shape," the source said.
MOIL Ltd's annual production is about 1.2 million tonnes (MT) now and keeping in view the demand growth in the coming years, the company aims to increase the capacity to the tune of 2.2 MT by 2020-21.
The company supplies 42% of the total requirement of ore in the country.
MOIL Ltd clocked a 8.35% rise in profit after tax at Rs 390.53 crore in the first 11 months of current fiscal compared to Rs 360.44 crore a year ago.
Total revenue went up by over 8% to Rs 1,112.12 crore during the April-February period against Rs 1,027.11 crore a year earlier.
