Satish C. Gupta in Calcutta on Tuesday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta, Sept. 26: Hindustan Copper (HCL) is planning to develop two mines at an estimated investment of Rs 1,500 crore.

The public sector company, which came out of the red a couple of years back, is the only integrated primary copper producer in the country having its own captive mines. It plans to take up the Banwas deposit in Rajasthan and also dig an underground mine at Malanjkhand, Madhya Pradesh.

The plan coincides with a time when copper prices are at an all time high at the international market.

The company has posted a Rs 83-crore profit in the first five months of this fiscal compared with Rs 100 crore for the whole of 2005-06.

HCL has only two operating mines, one at Khetri, Rajasthan and the other being the Malanjkhand open cast mind.

Satish C. Gupta, chairman and managing director of the company, said HCL would focus on mining in future since it was sitting on large unexplored deposits.

The underground mine at Malanjkhand has 208 million tonnes (mt) of ore deposit, while Khetri and Banwas put together have 60 mt.

HCL has appointed an international consultant to help it improve existing mining practices and also develop plans for the Malanjkhand and Banwas mines.

While these projects will take shape in five to seven years, it is ready to open a closed mine in Jharkhand.

Recast plan

HCL will submit a plan to the Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises to restructure its balance sheet by writing off government loans and the interest thereon.