Dubai: MEC Infra a joint venture between Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority (Rakia) and Minerals Energy and Commodities Holdings, a fully owned subsidiary of Trimex will commission Indonesia's first private rail project in early 2011, an MEC official told reporters yesterday.
"MEC Infra expects to commission the first cargo train in 2011 with the first phase of development expected to handle 32 million tonnes per annum capacity of coal.
"We have completed the land acquisition for the project and expect to sign the engineering procurement and commissioning (EPC) contract for the rail corridor by May this year," Madhu Koneru, executive vice-chairman of MEC Holdings told reporters.
MEC Infra obtained Indonesia's first private railway licence to develop a 130km integrated freight corridor between Muaran Wahau to the port Bengalon in Kalimantan province.
The rail project is developed as part of infrastructure development for a coal mining project undertaken by MEC Coal, a mining company jointly owned by Rakia and MEC holdings.
MEC Coal is developing one of the largest green field coal mines in Asia, located in the East Kalimantan province of Indonesia.
In addition to exporting coal to India, China and the Middle East, the company is targeting to develop a domestic market for its coal output.
"We do not want to [be] purely dependent on exports. As part of our efforts to develop a captive market for our coal output we have tied up with National Aluminium Company of India to develop a 500,000 tonnes per annum capacity aluminium smelter near our mine," said Koneru.
MEC Coal will take 26 per cent equity stake in the $2 billion (Dh7.3 billion) smelter complex that will also include a 1,250 megawatt captive power plant.
As part of marketing the coal to its end users in India, MEC Coal is planning to enter equity swap deals with coal importers. Through these deals, MEC Coal proposed to take minority stakes in private sector coal based power producers in India while offering them minority stakes in MEC Coal.
Price stability
"This is an innovative structure we are introducing to bring price stability for coal over a long term. As stakeholders in both supply and demand side of coal business it should work to smoothen the impact of price fluctuations," he said.
MEC is negotiating a $1 billion financing of the infrastructure projects around the coal mine including the rail project with Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services, an India-based infrastructure financing company.
In addition to coal mining and infrastructure development, MEC Holdings is exploring investments in the agriculture sector.
