Tata Steel & West Bengal Industrial Development Corporate (WBIDC) have decided to setup a joint venture company which will be known as the Hooghly Met Coke & Power Co Ltd (HMCPCL). The joint venture company, which will be formed and registered shortly, proposes to set up a Merchant Coke Oven Plant at Haldia adopting heat recovery (HR) route with a capacity of 0.8 million tones of Coke annually at the completion of phase-one.

A formal Shareholders Agreement to this effect between WBIDC & Tata Steel was signed by Mr. B. Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel & Mr. Gopal Krishna, Managing Director, WBIDC in Kolkata in the presence of Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Mr. Nirupam Sen, Hon’ble Minister-in-Charge of Commerce & Industry and Chairman of WBIDC, Mr. Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons and Dr. T. Mukherjee, Dy.Managing Director (Steel), Tata Steel.

Mr RatanTata, Chairman, Tata Sons commented “We believe in the leadership of the State of West Bengal, that has spearheaded many reforms and encouraging investments to come in. West Bengal has tremendous potential which is yet to be fully explored”.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Buddhadev Bhattcharjee, Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal said, “The Tata Group is very positive about our State. They are coming in a big way and investing in other areas like power, automobile as well as Cancer Research Institute. I thank Ratan N Tata for giving us much importance and taking West Bengal in their fold”.

HMCPC Limited will also generate 60 MW of electricity by utilizing the sensible heat of the hot flue gas from the Coke Ovens. The power generated by this company will be sold to the West Bengal State Electricity Board. A separate tripartite MOA for a Power Purchase Agreement was also executed by Dr. T. Mukherjee, Dy. Managing Director (Steel), Tata Steel, Mr. Gopal Krishna, Managing Director, WBIDC and Mr. Malay Dey, Chairman, West Bengal State Electricity Board in the presence of Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Mr Mrinal Banerjee, Hon’ble Minister for Power, Mr Nirupam Sen, Hon’ble Minister-in-Charge of Commerce & Industry and Chairman of WBIDC and Mr Ratan Tata, Chairman – Tata Sons.

The order for the machinery and equipment is expected to be placed over the year 2005. The first phase of the project is expected to be commissioned within 24 months. The total land requirement for the project would be around 200 acres.

The project is intended for supplying of high quality metallurgical coke to the international as well as to the domestic customers. It will also cater to the requirement of Tata Steel. Considering the necessity of producing world class low ash metallurgical coke, the entire coking coal requirement will be imported from countries such as Australia, Canada, CIS countries, New Zealand, USA, Poland and Indonesia.

The equity partners, as indicated are Tata Steel and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation.