Displaying items by tag: Ministry of Coal

India: The Ministry of Coal has cancelled Jaypee Cement’s coal block at Mandla in Madhya Pradesh citing breach of agreement. In a letter the ministry said that the cement producer was ‘not serious about the development of the coal mine,’ according to the Business Standard newspaper. The ministry has accused Jaypee Cement of switching the plant using coal from the mine without permission and of exceeding the agreed output.

The Mandla coal mine was allocated to Jaypee Cement in March 2015 after a bidding process. At first it supplied Jaypee’s Balaji cement plant in Andhra Pradesh. However, production from the mine switched to the Shahabad cement plant in June 2017 following the acquisition of the Balaji plant by UltraTech Cement.

India: Jaypee Cement is seeking approval from the Ministry of Coal to return two captive coal blocks, which it previously won by auction in 2015. The company has told the ministry that it does not require the coal blocks as it has sold off the attached cement plants, a ministry official told the Economic Times newspaper. The official added that Jaypee Cement could be barred from bidding for other coal blocks for one year and that bank guarantees equivalent to a year’s revenue from the mines could be seized. The two blocks are Majra in Maharashtra and Mandla South in Madhya Pradesh.

Orient Cement agreed to purchase three cement plants from Jaiprakash Associates for US$292m in early October 2016.