New Delhi: State-owned Hindustan Copper Limited (HCL) has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with fellow public sector firm Engineers India Limited (EIL), tapping the latter's engineering consultancy capabilities to support its operations across copper, critical minerals and rare earth elements.
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The agreement was signed on June 22 and formalised at EIL's corporate office in New Delhi in the presence of HCL Chairman and Managing Director Sanjiv Kumar Singh, along with management and senior officials of both organisations, EIL said in a statement on Wednesday.
Under the MoA, EIL will provide HCL "consultancy, engineering, project management, safety and integrity studies, sustainability, and advanced technical solutions focused on copper, critical minerals, and rare earth elements," EIL said. The services are aimed at supporting HCL's vertically integrated operations, which span mineral exploration, end-to-end mining, smelting, refining and downstream extraction.
The MoA gives effect to a proposal HCL's board cleared at its meeting on May 29, when it approved entering into an agreement with EIL for a range of technical and project services, according to exchange filings reported at the time.
The scope outlined then spanned pre-project and exploration services, engineering, detailed design, specialised metallurgy, safety and statutory compliance studies, integrity assessments, and sustainability and advanced technical solutions.
The tie-up comes as HCL pursues an aggressive capacity build-out. Under its Vision 2030 roadmap, the company has earmarked about Rs 7,188.60 crore in capital expenditure to raise ore production capacity to 12.20 MTPA by 2030-31, from about 4.21 MTPA in 2025-26.
HCL is India's only vertically integrated copper producer, with mines and processing units across Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Gujarat and Maharashtra. It has signed a series of consultancy and execution tie-ups in recent months, including an MoA with MECON in March for the expansion of the Malanjkhand Copper Project and modernisation of its Khetri and Indian Copper complexes.
Copper is classified among India's strategic minerals for energy transition, with demand expected to rise on the back of electric vehicles, renewable energy, transmission networks, data centres and battery manufacturing. HCL is also one of three state firms, alongside NALCO and MECL, that make up Khanij Bidesh India Limited (KABIL), the government vehicle tasked with acquiring critical mineral assets overseas.
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The agreement signed with EIL needs to be viewed through the lens of these facts. In addition, for EIL, whose expertise has long been in the hydrocarbon sector, this agreement makes part of an attempt to diversify its order book beyond oil and gas and towards new and alternative energy sectors.
India's spending on critical mineral imports rose from about USD 3.03 billion in 2020-21 to USD 8.01 billion in 2023-24, an increase of roughly 164 percent, according to an IEEFA briefing note published in April 2026.
