Mumbai: The Aditya Birla Group has acquired the Mount Gordon Copper mines in Queensland, its second in Australia, for a gross consideration of Australian Dollar 21 million (over Rs 65 crore).

The acquisition, to be funded in 60:40 debt-equity ratio and expected to be completed by October 31, 2003, would be conducted through Hindalco's wholly-owned subsidiary Birla Minerals Pty Ltd.

Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumarmangalam Birla told reporters "The acquisition is a major strategic step in our move to become a global competitive integrated copper player. It is a good fit with our current Australian operations and comes subsequent to our successfully stabilising the acquisition of Nifty copper mines (for about Rs 250 crore) in January 2003."

The Mount Gordon Copper mine owned by Western Metals Ltd, which went into receivership since July 2003, had reported resource estimate at 20 million tonnes of ore grading 3.6 per cent copper. The plant's current cathode production was 50,000 TPA with two operating mines Esperanza and Mammoth.

Hindalco managing director designate Debu Bhattacharya said Mount Gordon and Nifty copper mine would cater to more than one-third of Birla Copper's concentrate requirement.

The company would convert the cathode plant at Mount Gordon into concentrate production unit for around Aus $10 million (Rs 31 crore). The process would take 6-8 months and cathode production would continue during this period, he added.

PTI