The Bureau of Public Enterprises yesterday announced that it had pre-qualified 36 prospective investors for the acquisition of nine coal blocks of the Nigerian Coal Corporation (NCC.)

A statement from Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, Head, Public Communications, said 21 investors interested in buying 13 mining titles belonging to the Nigerian Mining Corporation (NMC) were also pre-qualified.

It explained in a breakdown of the coal blocks, that 17 of the firms were from Nigeria; six from South Africa; six from India; one from United Arab Emirate; one from Poland; one from the United Kingdom; one from Italy; one from Russia; one from Canada; and one joint bid from a Nigeria/Chinese firm.

The statement added that the breakdown for the mining titles showed that Nigeria had 13; India 2; South Africa 2; Canada 1; Nigeria/South Africa 1; Poland 1; and Nigeria/ China 1.

“The investors have been pre-qualified to undertake due diligence exercise before they will be required to submit their technical and financial proposals to the Bureau,” Anichebe said. “The BPE had placed advertisements between October 2006 and February 2007 in local and foreign media asking for applications from interested investors for the acquisition of NCC coal blocks and NMC mining titles.”

By the deadline of February 15, 2007, he stated, 30 Expressions of Interest (EOIs) were harvested in respect of coal blocks, and 29 for mining titles.

He recalled that the BPE had in early 2006 pre-qualified 11 prospective investors in respect of the coal blocks for submission of technical and financial bids before the process was suspended.

According to him, the pre-qualified companies were asked not to re-submit fresh EOIs when the Bureau placed re-advertisement between October, 2006 and February 2007.Sequel to the receipt of the new applications for coal blocks, the Bureau has now pre-qualified 25 out of the 30 firms that applied.