The country’s only copper mining entity, Hindustan Copper Ltd. is planning to enter the business of extracting precious metals and minerals help insulate the firm from price volatility seen on the London Metal Exchange.
This is a sort of hedge mechanism, as the prices it can command are linked to the LME, Santosh Sharma, Chairman cum Managing Director of the listed PSU told the media. In the past, HCL had seen its fortunes fluctuate with the price movements of copper on the LME.
By July, HCL will commission a waste-to-wealth project at its Malanjkhand project in Madhya Pradesh, which will enable it to extract precious metals such as gold and silver, as well as minerals such as silica through a copper ore tails project. The ₹200-crore project “will be a significant value creator,” he said. An estimated ₹30 crore may be added to the bottomline annually, he said.
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A project to monetise rocks like granite and quartzite thrown up during opencast copper mining has also been proposed.
₹6,000-crore business
While 100 million tonnes of such rocks are available at Malanjkhand, this could go up to 250 million tonnes with increased mining. The business is valued at ₹6,000 crore per annum.
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HCL has also received government nod for carrying out copper exploration. “Our reserves will last 30 years... with current capacity expansion, this may fall short,” he said. The firm has awarded tenders to MECL for the Singbhum belt.