With the acquisition, Jindal gets CIC’s 6 billion tonne coal resource in Botswana.

The Botswana government has already approved the change of control from CIC to Jindal.

All other approvals for the merger have been granted and the merger certificate is expected to be issued in the next few days, marking completion of the acquisition.

The deal gives Jindal access to CIC’s thermal coal in the Greater Mmamabula coalfield in southeast Botswana.

It also gives it access to the highly lucrative and power deficient South African Development Community countries and provides an opportunity to set up a coal to hydrocarbons project.

Jindal director and group chief financial officer Sushil Maroo said it was a step in the direction of backward integration as the coal assets would give the company self-sufficiency when it came to dependency on natural resources.

CIC was already granted water allocation for the mining and power plants and also received environmental approvals for its power project.

It is the frontrunner for building a 1200-megawatt power plant in Botswana to supply power to South Africa.

The company has drilled about 2100 boreholes, totalling about 186km.

The run of mine coal quality has ash ranging from 23% to 42% and the gross calorific value ranges from 3700 to 5500.

Jindal has the ambitious target of having more than 25,000MW electricity generation capacity by 2020.