Officials from Coal India Ltd., a state-owned monopoly, will next month visit Mozambique to examine a coking-coal mine the company plans to acquire along with Steel Authority of India Ltd. and three other government-run companies.

“A team is scheduled to go to discuss technicalities and other details,” Chairman Partha Bhattacharyya said today in an interview from Kolkata. “It’s too premature to talk about” how much coal the mine may hold.

The acquisition is planned to boost domestic supplies, which lags behind demand. India’s economy, Asia’s third-biggest, has grown more than 8 percent annually since 2003, boosting the need for coal used by power plants, cement companies and steelmakers. The country may import 60 million tons of the fuel annually by 2012, Anil Razdan, the nation’s power secretary, said last month.

Coal India, which controls most of the nation’s supply of the fuel, NTPC Ltd., Steel Authority, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd. and NMDC Ltd. have formed a company to buy coal assets overseas. The company may have a capital $2.3 billion, Bhattacharyya said.

“We are appointing merchant bankers to help us secure funds and advice us on feasibility of acquisitions,” Bhattacharya said.

The company is seeking to buy mines in Australia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and thermal coal assets in Indonesia and South Africa, K. Ranganath, marketing director, said March 4. It plans to spend 90 billion rupees ($2.2 billion) in the next five years to raise output and help ease a shortage forecast to reach 51.1 million tons by 2012.

Coal India’s output is expected to rise to 405 million tons next year and 520 million tons by 2012 from 380 million tons now.