Electrosteel Steels has placed the highest bid for the Nadidih iron ore block in Sunday’s forward auction in Odisha at a premium of 95.6%, SteelMint learned from sources.
The iron ore block had been bagged by Sociedade De Fomento last year offering 141.25% in premium but the Goa-based miner chose not to sign a lease agreement on grounds that the MDPA was too aggressive for this reserve.
Bidding for this deposit, that Rungta Group’s BICO mined earlier, started at 76.1%, what Vedanta’s Electrosteel had offered as the initial price offer (IPO). The other four qualified bidders in this forward round were Ramgad Minerals, Rungta, AM/NS India and Odisha Metalliks. Low bids of 30% by JSW’s newly-acquired Bhusan Power and 27% by Jagannath Power disqualified the two companies from the second round.
The mine has an area of 74.5 Ha with explorations done up to G2 level and has total geological resources of around 27 mn t of iron ore. The mine produces 89.334% fines and 10.666% lumpy ore.
The government has put 10 iron ore blocks under the hammer in this round. These include Nadidih BICO, Kasia, Gandhalpada, JumkaPatrishohi to name a few.
Odisha’s Department of Steel and Mines expects to complete the auction process by Sept’21-end and after the current tranche of 11 mineral blocks, may auction another five blocks as composite leases. The Odisha government is expected to announce the technically qualified bidders for other mines gradually in the coming days.
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