Nava Bharat Ventures Ltd. , is expected to complete the construction of a 300-megawatt coal-fired thermal plant in Zambia by 2014 as it seeks to boost the country’s power generation capacity, a company executive said Saturday.

Nava Bharat has finalized the detailed layout of the power plant, which will be located near Zambia’s largest coal mine, Maamba Collieries Ltd. The plant is expected to initially generated at least 300 MW of power, company director Ashwin Devineni said in a statement. It will later be upgraded to generate an additional 300 MW, he added.

According to Devineni, Nava Bharat is planning to invest $750 million at the mine and the power plant. Construction at the power plant will commence before the end of the year.

Nava Bharat bought a 65% stake in Maamba last year and has since stepped up investments at the former major supplier of coal to Zambia’s copper and cobalt mines. Zambia’s state mining investment company, ZCCM-IH, retained a 35% stake in the mine.

Maamba, which had ceased operations in 2008, resumed output in May after getting new equipment. The mine is expected to reach full-scale production by August and is targeting to produce at least 360,000 tons of coal by the end of the year.

Nava Bharat has been replacing the obsolete equipment at the mine since early this year.

Until 2008, Maamba was the leading supplier of coal to Zambia’s vast copper and cobalt mines on the Copperbelt and North Western provinces, but inadequate investment and labor strikes hampered the company’s output, compelling mines to resort to more expensive imported coal.

Zambia is Africa’s largest copper producer.

In its heyday, Maamba produced around 600,000 tons of coal a year to supply mines in Zambia and in the copper-rich Katanga province of Congo.

Nava Bharat plans to raise annual coal output to 2 million tons when operation reach full capacity next year.

The mine’s total coal reserves are estimated at 65 million tons.

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