NEW DELHI, November 7. /TASS/. India intends to scale up purchases of Russian coking coal and expects four shipments to come by the end of this year, head of the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) Amarendu Prakash said, Reuters news agency reports.

Four batches of coking coal with the weight of 75,000 metric tons each will arrive in India during the quarter ending in December, Prakash noted.

"Since April, SAIL, the country's largest state-owned steel producer, had eight shipments from Russia," the news agency said. Australia and the United States are also major suppliers of coking coal to India.