Russia’s largest diversified industrial group, Basel, has expanded into the coal business, purchasing East Siberian production sites with a yearly output of 9.5 million tonnes, a company official said on Monday.

The official for Basel’s EnPlus energy subsidiary told Reuters that EnPlus’ subsidiary EuroSibEnergo bought coal producer VostSibUgol in the East Siberian region of Irkutsk from Russia’s largest coal producer SUEK.

He declined to disclose the value of the deal.

“The purchase will allow EuroSibEnergo to fully meet the coal needs of Irkutskenergo ,” the official said.

A SUEK official said VostSibUgol had been spun off from the company in mid 2007 as part of restructuring and divestment of non-core assets and recently belonged to SUEK’s main shareholders. He declined further comments.

Irkutskenergo is Russia’s third-largest power utility by installed electricity capacity and is the key supplier of facilities of United Company RUSAL, the world’s largest primary aluminium producer.

Both RUSAL and Basel are controlled by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, Russia’s richest man according to Forbes magazine.

Standard & Poors estimates that Deripaska and other shareholders in RUSAL also have control of Irkutskenergo.

Russia produced 315 million tonnes of coal last year with over a quarter produced by SUEK, which plans to merge its power and coal assets with those of gas export monopoly Gazprom .

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