Austral Coke acquires mining assets in West Africa

Austral Coke & Projects through its Guinea based subsidiary, Astra Energy SARL, has acquired 16 prospecting licenses of rich iron ore, bauxite and manganese ore blocks measuring 12,63,000 acres in Guinea in West Africa. The contract term is for 30 years with an extendable term of another 30 years. Austral is the first Indian company to get licenses in Guinea and biggest in terms of land acquired. (12,63,000 acres)

The expected reserves of 3.5 billion tons of bauxite spread over 2,950 sq kms under six licenses. Iron ore expected services of 1.8 billion tons spread over 1,455 sq kms under three licenses and, manganese reserves are expected at 53 million tons spread over 710 sq kms under seven licenses.

The company plans to extract annual quantity of 5 million tons of bauxite and iron ore and 0.10 million tons of manganese from these mines initially. It also has 6 coal prospecting licenses admeasuring 100,000 hectares in Mozambique through its 95% controlled Mozambique-based subsidiary Astra Mining.

Shares of the company declined Rs 2.25, or 5.01%, to trade at Rs 42.65. The total volume of shares traded was 365,254 at the BSE