Seshagiri Rao, joint managing director and group CFO, JSW Steel, said the coking coal mines in the west Virginia area of the United States have total reserves of 123 million tonne. “One of the mines is operational and we plan to ship 1 million tonne of coking coal from this mine in the first year. The others will be ready in 24 months,” he said after announcing JSW’s fourth-quarter and annual results.

DNA Money broke the story first on February 11, 2010.

Rao further said the steelmaker plans to raise coking coal production at the mine to 3 million tonne in three years. He, however, did not disclose the number of mines being purchased.

Rao said that the company is looking at various options to raise money to fund its expansion plans. “The board has approved preferential allotment of 1.75 crore warrants to the promoter. The money raised will be Rs 2,100 crore and will constitute to about 9.36% of the existing paid up share capital of the company,” he said.

The promoter holding post the warrant conversion will be 49.71% of the expanded share capital. Meanwhile, JSW’s consolidated profit for the year ended March 31, 2010 stood at Rs 1597.55 crore against Rs 275 crore for last year. Net sales were Rs 5441 crore (Rs 3568 crore).

Rao said JSW Steel produced 5.99 million tonne steel for the year ended March 31, 2010, and the company aims to produce 7 million tonne steel in the current year. “The demand is looking good. Our US subsidiary is also showing good improvement and is currently running at 28% capacity utilisation. This year, we are planning to take it up to 35-40%,” Rao said.

Sourced from www.dnaindia.com