Thursday, February 24,
National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) may increase iron ore export prices by 17-20% in the next financial year to cash in on higher global prices.*
The public sector miner is also mulling a shift from annual to quarterly contracts for overseas customers.
“Given the pricing environment, NMDC is looking at a 17-20 per cent price rise from April 2011 to cash in on higher prices in the international market,” said a top NMDC official. He said the increase was essential to offset the rising cost pressure.
NMDC, which has a five-year supply contract with Japanese and South Korean companies, will renew these in April. The contracts are annual in nature.
“As the nature of trade has shifted from annual to quarterly contracts across the world, we are also mulling quarterly contracts. However, these decisions will depend on the approval of the central Cabinet,” he said.
NMDC is also planning to raise domestic iron ore prices for supply contracts from April 2011. “The price revision will also be done for domestic supply contracts,” said the NMDC official.
“Though a price revision in domestic contracts is difficult to determine at this point in time, we will factor in the freight rate hike by the railways in recent times.”
Leave a Reply