India’s Essar Group Ltd. will acquire U.S. coal producer Trinity Coal for $600 million, giving the global steelmaker direct access to a key raw material that’s seen a recovery in demand.
An Essar unit is buying Trinity from Denham Capital, a U.S.-based private equity firm focused on energy and commodities investments that acquired the coal producer in 2005. The deal will give Essar, an international conglomerate with interests in steel, energy, construction, and shipping, ownership of 200 million tons in coal reserves in the Central Appalachian region. The reserves are split between metallurgical coal used in steel production and thermal coal used to fuel power plants.