no xmas or new year presents, page-2

"The Indian tiger hype" is running out of steam. It might be best to cut our losses when the Surda mine contract expires in 2014. There are better countries to do business in. India is a dead loss, and it won't change.
A Thai friend in Thailand has a 3 metre x 3 metre noodle shop in Tesco Lotus and makes more money than IRL.

Approval delays erode foreign miners M-cap
Rakhi Mazumdar, ET Bureau Dec 7, 2012, 04.00AM IST
KOLKATA: India Resources, Geo Mysore, Indo Gold, Peeble Creek are foreign mining firms you don`t get to hear often. These are a few of the India-focused foreign mining companies based out of Australia and Canada which were attracted by the mining sector`s potential and decided to invest in exploration.

However, they now seem to running out of patience due to the enormous delays in getting started on aproject here which has led to a sharp drop in market cap and fading shareholder interest back home.
"India ranks low in terms of mining investment. There has been a drastic fall in investment aimed at exploration largely due to the inordinate procedural delays that companies face here," Arvind Misra, managing director, India Resources Ltd, said.

The company, the only foreign contract miner to operate in India, had successfully restarted Hindustan Copper`s Sarda underground mines in Jharkhand in 2007. However, it was forced to abandon plans to take up outsourced coal mining in captive blocks because of `inordinate delays` in securing mining leases. While the mining sector in India holds a lot of promise, the delays have caused huge disappointment.

"We raised money from shareholders to invest in India. But our market capitalisation has plunged due to the long delays. It has become difficult for us to justify our plans to stick around in India.

I speak on behalf of quite a few other companies too which have shown keen interest to invest in the exploration," Misra added. This includes Peeble Creek of Canada, which owned 100% stake in a gold, silver, lead and zinc mining project at Askot in Uttarakhand.

However, due to the long delays, the company, in which IRL has a strategic stake, is facing tremendous financial strain in sustaining its presence in India. Similarly, Brisbane-based Indo Gold, which hopes to invest Rs 2,000 crore, is stuck for the last 8-10 years with its application for gold mining near Udaipur in Rajasthan.

Geo Mysore, a Bangalore-based exploration and mining company, too has faced long delays in getting mining lease for gold. It is 100% owned by Australian Indian Resources. India`s large market for mining services too has attracted several foreign majors like Australia`s Thiess and Kopex of Poland.