NAIROBI, May 20  -- Kenya has awarded a consortium led by a Chinese firm a concession deal to develop two coal blocks in the country's eastern region.

The ministry of energy and petroleum said the Chinese firm, HCIG Energy Investment Company Ltd, will partner with Liketh Investments Kenya to extract and process coal on blocks A and B in Kitui County.

"The consortium will now be invited for negotiations with the ministry as per the tender requirements on the basis of their responsiveness in the technical and financial proposals they submitted," the ministry said in a statement received Wednesday in Nairobi.

The ministry said the HCIG and Liketh consortium is one of the three technically-successful firms for the concession of the two coal blocks whose financial proposals were opened on March 23.

The power generation plant, which will be built near Mui basin, where huge deposits of coal have been found, is projected to be ready for operation in the next 36 months.

The award follows the evaluation and acceptance by the ministry of energy and petroleum of the consortium's technical and financial proposals in the tender for concession of the two coal blocks.

"The concession also provides for construction and maintenance of minimum economically viable coal fired power plant, utilizing some of the coal to generate power for own use and sale of limited excess power to the national grid," the ministry said.

The East African nation has a huge mineral potential but its exploration efforts have only picked in the last six years with the awarding of commercial licences in prospecting for oil, gold, coal, geothermal and rare earths.

The coal and gas fired power plants are projects under the 5000+ MW program launched by the energy ministry early last month, and which aims at putting an additional over 5000MW into the national grid by 2016.