India's Jindal Steel and Power, the third largest steel manufacturing company in India, expects to start producing gas in Bolivia in June this year, for export to Argentina.

A company official, who did not want to be recognized, informed that the gas supplies would come from a processing plant in the eastern province of Santa Cruz.

It should be noted that the company and its Bolivian partners began drilling at the El Palmar gas field at the end of March and have already invested around $7 million in the project.

The Indian steel major has been working since 2007 at El Mutun, which is believed to contain some 40 billion tonnes of iron ore, making it one of the world's largest deposits of the mineral.

However, extraction of iron ore at El Mutun has been delayed because at least half of the 6,000 hectares that the Bolivian government assigned to Jindal to develop the deposit constitutes privately owned property, which yet to be expropriated.

The company has pledged to invest $2.1 billion in El Mutun over the next 40 years as part of a joint-venture deal with the Bolivian government.