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Monday, April 2, 2012

Australian coking coal suppliers Vale and AMCI to pay damages to SAIL

Monday, 02 Apr 2012

Economic Times reported that Delhi High Court has dismissed the plea of two Australian coal firms, Vale Australia Pty Ltd and AMCI Pty Ltd, against an International Court of Arbitration's order to them for payment of about USD 159 million as damages to the SAIL.

Justice S Muralidhar upheld the March 10th 2011 ICA's arbitral award for payment of over USD 152 million as damages to the Steel Authority of India Ltd with an interest of over USD 6.8 million over it.

The ICA had also asked the two firms to pay additionally 80% of the SAIL's legal costs, including USD 320,000 as expenses and USD 160,000 as costs paid by the Indian public sector company to the tribunal.

The court said that "While it may be possible to argue that another view is also possible, that by itself does not constitute a valid ground for a court to interfere (in a foreign award) under section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act. Consequently, this court is unable to find any error in the quantification of damages by the tribunal. All objections by Vale and AMCI to the award of March 10, 2011 passed by the tribunal are rejected with costs of INR 100,000 each to be paid by them to SAIL within four weeks.”

The dispute between the parties arose when Vale and AMCI failed to meet the SAIL demand of total 1 million tonnes of coking coal in 2007, under a long term agreement of April 23rd 2007 between them. The two companies managed to supply only 246,539 tonnes and a balance of 753,461 tonnes of coking coal remained to be supplied.

The matter was presented for dispute resolution in March 2009 before the ICA, which agreed with SAIL's contention that there was a breach of the LTA by the two Australian companies.

Source - Economic Times

Manila may award bulk of 38 coal projects in 5 months

Monday, 02 Apr 2012

The Philippines received 68 bids for 38 coal exploration projects on Friday and said it could award more than half the contracts within the next five months, as it aimed to cut imports of costly fossil fuels and secure energy supply.
Bidders at the country's fourth, and biggest, tender for prospective coal blocks included Philippine miners Benguet Corp and Semirara Mining Corp., the country's biggest coal producer.

Energy Undersecretary Jose Layug told reporters at the opening of sealed bids for the tender that "We obviously have attracted a lot of investors, and the list includes new parties.”

Mr Layug said that there were no bidders for a few sites. Most of the prospective coal blocks are located on the mineral rich provinces on the southern Mindanao island.

Mr Layug said winning bidders would receive two year contracts to explore for coal and 23 year operating contracts if successful.

Foreign ownership of coal projects in the Philippines is limited to 40%.

The government estimates the Philippines has a total coal resource potential of more than 3 billion tons, mainly thermal coal used for power generation.

Source - www.abs-cbnnews.com

Protest against iron ore operation of Vale in Malaysia

Mon,02 Apr2012

About 100 members of Jaringan Aktivis Alam Sekitar Perak JAASP, an environmental non governmental organization, staged a demonstration against the operation of an iron ore processing company, Vale SA, in Teluk Rubiah, Seri Manjung near here.

They claimed the operation had destroyed the environment in the area.

It is also reported that 4 Socialist Party of Malaysiamembers were detained by the police in Perak on their way to a protest against Vale’s iron ore processing plant in Lumut. They were released an hour later, after police took down their personal details and mobile numbers.

Vale is spending RM 4 billion in the first phase of the project, which will handle 30 million tonnes of iron ore yearly once completed in 2014.

The hub in Lumut, Perak will be able to accommodate Chinamax carriers, which are 400,000-tonne iron ore vessels that will cut freight costs for Vale.

Source - Bernama and The Malaysian Insider

Bangladesh eyeing Indonesia for Coal

Monday, 02 April 2012

The high level executives of Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) of Bangladesh is visiting Indonesia this week to study on coal sourcing, transportation and handling of coal for coal based thermal power plant in Khulna (660 MW), Chittagong (660 MW) and Maheshkhali (8320 MW LNG and coal combined) under Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB).

The team is planning to study and access of coal handling facilities and transportation system of coal from Indonesia and planning to import 19.5 million metric ton of coal per annum.

“BPDB is in Indonesia this week after visiting Australia to identify potential coal exporters from Indonesia, assess their capabilities and their willingness as well as to identify probable modalities to export coal to Bangladesh”, said Shankar of KIECOAL, who are facilitating BPDB’s visit to Indonesia.Link

The study team comprising of the officials from the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Power Development. The joint study team will be headed by Tapos Kumar Roy, additional secretary of Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources during Indonesian Visit.

“We are also in touch with several coal producers Indonesia to introduce BPDB,” Shankar added.

The team also planning to visit a coal mine in South Kalimantan prior to leave Indonesia.

(sourced coalspot.com)
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