Vedanta Ltd has been awarded the Kuraloi (A) North coal block in Jharsuguda district of Odisha at a bid of 15.25 per cent revenue share, the Ministry of Coal announced on Saturday.
Vedanta was the only bidder during the Centre’s second attempt of auctioning the block, Minister of Coal Pralhad Joshi told Parliament in March.
An Empowered Committee of Secretaries (ECoS) from the central government would take a final call on whether to award the block to the single bidder, Pralhad said in a written reply.
Vedanta's flagship aluminium smelter in Jharsuguda has an annual capacity of 1.6 million tonnes. It has a 3,615 MW thermal power plant for captive use.
With a geological reserve of 1,680 million tonnes, the Kuraloi (A) North block had been earlier floated during the first tranche of auctions under the MMDR (Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation) Act last year.
This is the third coal block that Vedanta has bagged after Jamkhani coal block in 2019 and Radhikapur West coal block in the auction last year. Both the blocks are also in Odisha.
During 2020-21, Vedanta’s aluminium and power vertical consumed around 22 million tonnes of coal. This was mainly sourced from Coal India.
“Our own coal mines are expected to be operationalised over the next couple of years,” Vedanta MD Ajay Kapur told BusinessLine last month.