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Hind. Copper in talks with Jharkhand Govt.

KOLKATA: Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL), the only integrated copper company in India, has begun talks with the Jharkhand Government for renewing its leases in four mines.

The company, which has made a turnaround, witnessed drop a in its profits in 2007-08 due to dollar depreciation, although its production increased by 5,000 tonnes during the year, company Chairman and Managing Director, Satish Gupta, told The Hindu. The company, whose capital was restructured by the government last year, has a miniscule non-promoter holding of 0.5 per cent. The HCL board met here on Thursday to finalise the results.

The net profit dropped from Rs. 313.90 crore to Rs. 267.40 crore. Mr. Gupta said the profit was set to touch Rs. 350 crore and would have done so since production had also increased. However, since HCL’s prices were benchmarked to the London Metal Exchange (and the exchange rate), it suffered a drop on account of the Rs. 5 reduction in the rupee-dollar exchange rate in 2007-08. HCL increased its production to 45,000 tonnes from 40,000 tonnes during the year.

Mr. Gupta said to reduce dependence on imported copper concentrate, the company was laying emphasis on its mining activities, The Surda copper mines in Jharkhand has resumed production after a five-year long closure and renewal of four more mining leases were being negotiated in Jharkhand. Efforts were also on to open new mines and modernise the existing ones. HCL has operations in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Maharastra. A company release said that in terms of physical performance, HCL registered a record growth of 36 per cent in wire rod production, a 13 per cent increase in refined cathode production and a seven per cent increase in sales volume which touched Rs. 1,828 crore.

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