After successfully expanding its footprint in Australia, state-owned miner Coal India (CIL) is now exploring critical and rare earth minerals for mining in Chile.
The company is planning to send a dedicated team to the South American country, one of the world’s top producers of critical minerals for exploration and mining purposes, said an official source who did not wish to be identified.
“We are open to explore any mineral anywhere. We are now sending a team to Chile and they will have discussions on the same,” said the source. “When they come back we will see. We will explore all minerals including copper, nickel, lithium and others.”
Chile is the largest supplier of copper and second largest producer of lithium – a key mineral used in manufacture of electric vehicle batteries.
In a strategic move aimed to diversify into critical mineral mining and global resource acquisition, Coal India has earlier entered into two non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with companies in New South Wales, Australia.
FE had earlier reported that the country’s largest coal mining company is looking to foray into critical minerals and had identified some lithium blocks in Australia, Chile, and Argentina.
The move comes amid India’s endeavor to secure critical minerals to fulfill the country’s developmental objectives and reduce its import dependency. The country is a net importer of critical minerals.
To achieve the same, the government had also passed the Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2023, to offer exploration licenses for deep-seated and critical minerals.
The government had last year launched the first ever auction of critical and strategic minerals for 20 such blocks including 5.9-million-tonne lithium reserves discovered in Reasi district of Jammu & Kashmir.
Other than Coal India, many private players have shown interest in mining of such minerals and have bidded for critical minerals blocks under the auction conducted by the government. Vedanta, Jindal Power, and Dalmia Group are among the top bidders for critical minerals launched in the first tranche.
The ministry of mines has now set a target to put 500 blocks of minerals on auction by 2025-26 which will include rare earth elements (REEs) and precious metals, a goal that was earlier envisaged to be achieved by 2024-end.
Coal India’s capital expenditure for the financial year 2023-24 increased by 6.5% to Rs 19,840 crore compared with FY23 when the capex stood at Rs 18,619. This is the consecutive fourth fiscal that Coal India’s capex breached the budgeted target.
Of this, it spent Rs 5,557 crore towards its diversification in various areas including solar projects, joint ventures, washeries, and exploration projects and others.
