Riversdale signs contract for $800 mln coal project

MAPUTO May 15 (Reuters) - Australia's Riversdale Mining RIV.AX signed a contract with Mozambique's government for its $800 million Benga coal project in the southern African country, a government official said on Friday.

"Today Mozambique is officially signing a concession license for Riversdale ... Mineral Resources Minister Esperanca Bias is in Tete to sign the mining contract," the ministry's secretary Oracio Belengueze told Reuters.

The Benga project will include a hard coking and thermal coal mine, with an anticipated run of mine of 20 million tonnes per year.

Riversdale plans to start producing coal at Benga in 2010, and aims to export 2 million tonnes of the mineral each year, starting in the last quarter of 2010.

Riversdale holds a 65 percent stake in the project, and India's Tata Steel (TISC.BO) owns the rest.

Riversdale is also investing $3.1 billion in a thermal power project in Mozambique. (Reporting by Charles Mangwiro; editing by Sue Thomas)

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