india eyes south africa’s coal, page-4

“We are interested in forming partnerships and joint ventures on certain projects and investing in certain coal mines.”

Hi HB - Happy New Year to you & all long suffering CCC holders.

It's hard to tell how significant this news is until we actually see some deals being made & thus new valuation metrics to guage what buyers would be prepared to pay for CCC's SA assets. There are increasing signs of desperation from the Indians, to secure LT coal supplies. Domestic production shortfalls keep getting worse while the Indonesians talk of tightening up supplies & increasing prices via new taxes. While the Indians have shown considerable price sensitivity to RB coal lately, the Chinese are more than happy to buy their share ( India’s imports of coal from South Africa fell in the first 11 months of 2011, while China almost doubled purchases, according to Mjunction Services Ltd.).

The article provides a welcome distraction & fuel for speculatiopn, while we wait for the overdue announcements on VanMag (WTF is going on Peter?), SIOC, ABSA & Mashala acquisition.

Cheers

M