Jamshedpur, Jan. 20: Korean steel giant Posco has requested BCCL management to provide it with about 15,000 tonnes of coking coal as a sample.

The request comes after a nine-member team of the steel major visited the Jharia coalfield area this morning. The Posco team was on an on-the-spot inspection of the open cast Munaidih mines, one of the best coking coal mines of BCCL.

Chairman-cum-managing director of BCCL Partho Sarathi Bhattacharjee informed The Telegraph from Dhanbad that Posco has apparently taken a liking for the coking coal.

?They have asked if we could provide about 15,000 tons of the material as sample. We told them the BCCL management would consider the request but they have to make a formal bid for the company to be able to do the needful,? he informed.

The Korean company, which has a project proposed in Orissa, is looking for quality coking coal, which is an essential ingredient to manufacture steel. Only BCCL mines have coking coal in the country. Other states do not have reserves of coking coal.

?Posco officials have not told us why they want the sample. They simply told us that their annual requirement would be about 9 million tons of coking coal for the Orissa project and would like to have a sample of the material mined by BCCL. We think that they want to test the quality of the material that is being mined in Jharia,? BBCL sources said.

However, BCCL officials maintained that it would be impossible for the company to provide coking coal to Posco since Steel Authority of India (SAIL) would be facing a problem if BCCL decide to provide coking coal to Posco.

Significantly, SAIL had recently invested in Munaidih to improve the mining operations there.