BHUBANESWAR, India, Sept 21 (Reuters) India's state-run National Aluminium Co Ltd (NALCO) (NALU.BO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), plans a foray into the copper and coal businesses as it looks for ways to diversify, a senior company official told Reuters on Monday.
B.L. Bagra, the firm's finance director, said a team of Nalco officials recently visited the African nation of Congo to look at prospects in coal mines, and the company was also negotiating for a coal property in Indonesia.
"We are planning to enter into copper... copper mining, copper smelting and coal mining," Bagra said by telephone. "We are diversifying so that if one sector performs badly others will support it."
The firm would focus on copper mining and smelting for now, he added.
Nalco, India's third-largest aluminium maker, produced 361,262 tonnes of aluminium in the year ending March 2009.
The firm, which last week announced plans to invest in a nuclear power project as an independent power producer, is looking at prospects in coal mines in India and abroad, Bagra said.
"Other than coal properties for our captive power plant and smelter, we are looking for standalone coal mines," he said. (Reporting by Jatindra Dash; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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