NDIAN COMPANY TO START COAL EXPORTS THIS YEAR

The Indian company Jindal Steel and Power expects to start exporting coal from its mine in Changara district, in the western Mozambican province of Tete, later this year.Interviewed in Tuesday’s issue of the independent newsheet “Mediafax”, the director of Jindal-Mozambique, Manoj Gupta, said that initial exports will be on a small scale, but will eventually rise to ten million tonnes a year, when the mine is fully developed.“Right now, we are developing the mine and setting up all the necessary infrastructures, including an electricity sub-station”, said Gupta. “We are providing all the conditions for the start of operations, so that by the end of the year we can start the first exports”.Initially, Jindal plans to use the Sena railway line that runs from Tete province to Beira, and export its coal from the port of Beira. But it may also use whatever other transport options become available.“We will use the existing facilities, and our volume of exports will depend on the capacity of the Sena Line”, said Gupta. “We intend to participate in the projects for new infrastructures that are in the government’s plans, and which are in line with our targets”.By the end of this year, the Sena line, and the coal terminal at Beira port will not be able to handle more than six million tonnes of coal a year. But as more of the mines in Tete come into production, it will become urgent to find other routes to the sea. Thus Riversdale Mining of Australia (now taken over by Rio Tinto) favours barging coal down the Zambezi river and transshipping it onto larger vessels at the mouth of the Zambezi. Vale of Brazil is committed to building a new railway across Malawi that will link up with the existing northern line to the port of Nacala. Other possibilities include using the port in Quelimane, capital of Zambezia province, and building new ports in Zambezia, with railways linking them to Tete.For the current phase of development, Jindal is investing about 250 million US dollars in the Changara mine.Gupta said that the coking coal mined at Changara will be exported to the Jindal Group’s steel plants in India. But the company also intends to discuss using some of the coal to produce electricity within Mozambique.