According to a report in The Hindu, an Indian delegation including Steel Authority of India chairman CS Verma and Ministry of Steel Joint Secretary UP Singh will travel to Ulaanbaatar to sign an agreement on the plan.

“We are signing an MoU with the Mongolian government for allocation of some coking coal mine,” Verma was quoted as saying.

“We have been talking about this for about a year.”

Upon acquiring the mine, the government plans to use the coal for a steel plant India aims to set up in Mongolia.

It will then export the rest of the coal to India through Chinese ports.

India is looking to Mongolia as an alternative source of coal supply because the country has vast resources of high quality coking coal.

“Mongolia has very good quality of coking coal mines, we do not have such quality coal mines ourselves,” Verma said.

The move is also a chance for India to depend less on coking coal from its interests in Australian mines.

“India is importing 35Mt of coking coal every year, about 60 to 70 per cent from Australia, which is close to India and the rest from US and New Zealand,” Verma reportedly said.

“We have to acquire mines outside India as we do not have coking coal mines in India.”