Rockland will be a good acquisition: Niraj shah

What is your take on JSPL and their acquisition of Rockland which is on the cards right now?

Basically JSPL will need about 0.5 million tonne of coke every year for their blast furnace and the coking coal prices and generally the coal prices in last six months have just zoomed off. If you talk about thermal coal prices, they were about $60 per tonne in March-April. They have gone up to say $82 per tonne and the coking coal prices have gone up from 125 to 132, almost like $160-170. So we see that resources are going to be the key thing and so it will be a good acquisition if they get. Valuation will not matter much because the key is to get hold.


It may not matter. But A$200 million is the amount that we are looking at. Is it expensive? Are you comfortable with it?

I do not know about the reserves and it is about 800 billion tonnes and I do not think that is a very expensive kind of thing. So if you look at the long term point of view, definitely it is worth it.

Iron ore contract prices are expected to go up and some brokers are just saying maybe 20 to 30 per cent price hike is on the cards. What is the number that you are estimating?

My estimate is about 30 per cent of price hike. To be precise, I expect that this year the price is around $60 dollar per tonne. That should go up to about $75 to $78 per tonne or 64 per cent iffy.