London: Tata Steel Ltd, India's largest steelmaker, obtained the company's first license to mine in the UK as part of a plan to produce its own raw materials.

Tata's Corus Group Plc unit will explore and may develop an underground mine at Margam, Wales, spokeswoman Annanya Sarin said in an interview today from London.

The company, which has a steel mill in Wales at Port Talbot, may invest in iron-ore assets, she said, without specifying where.

"We currently import all our coal requirements and we are looking at a number of alternatives," Sarin said. Work to determine the grades of coal at Margam will last as long as a year, she said.

Benchmark coking coal contract prices tripled this year to a record. Global demand for the steelmaking raw material will be a 15 million metric tons more than production in 2008, Macquarie Bank Ltd said in a report last month.

Iron-ore prices have also risen to a record on booming demand from China.

Corus hasn't set targets for potential production, Sarin said. She declined to say how much the company plans to invest.

Source : PTI