Four PSUs actively looking for critical mineral assets abroad: Mines Secretary

Four PSUs are actively engaged in scouting for critical mineral assets abroad, said Mines Secretary VL Kantha Rao.
Summary

• Coal India, ONGC Videsh, NMDC and KABIL actively engaged in scouting for critical mineral assets abroad, said Mines Secretary

• Coal India actively pursuing Lithium blocks in Chile

• KABIL has been studying Bolivia

• NMDC is looking for Lithium mines in Australia

• India is exploring a joint collaboration with Zambia on exploration of critical minerals

New Delhi: Four Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) — Coal India Limited, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), NMDC Limited and KABIL (Khanij Bidesh India Ltd) — are actively engaged in scouting for critical mineral assets abroad, said VL Kantha Rao, Secretary, Ministry of Mines, on Wednesday. Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a workshop on offshore mining in New Delhi, Rao said that all of these PSUs have some kind of a presence abroad already.

“A group of secretaries (on resources) has decided that these companies (Coal India, NMDC, ONGC Videsh Ltd) move forward and look at critical mineral assets abroad also. It is an easy method. All these companies which already have some kind of presence abroad will now actively start looking at critical mineral assets abroad,” Rao told reporters. KABIL, a joint venture of three PSUs — National Aluminium Company Ltd (NALCO), Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL) and Mineral Exploration and Consultancy Ltd (MECL) — which comes under the Ministry of Mines has been formed to scout for mineral assets overseas.