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July 1 (Reuters) - Indian state-owned miner NMDC NMDC.NS on Tuesday said it is exploring acquisition opportunities for critical minerals in Africa, Australia and South America, as part of its global mineral diversification strategy.

On Monday, the country's largest iron ore miner opened a Dubai office that will track mineral sector developments in Africa and Australia and focus on scouting mineral assets and conducting due diligence, it said in a statement.

In April, NMDC Chairman Amitava Mukherjee said the miner was looking at Africa for lithium, iron ore, copper and cobalt as well as exploring coking coal assets in Indonesia and Australia.

Last year, India's Secretary of Mines V.L. Kantha Rao said that NMDC and Coal India were exploring lithium mines in Chile and Australia.

In 2023, NMDC's unit Legacy Iron Ore had signed a lithium exploration pact with Australia's Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd.

(Reporting by Neha Arora in New Delhi and Anuran Sadhu in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

((Anuran.Sadhu@thomsonreuters.com; +91 8697274436;))