India: OMC Iron Ore E-auction could be delayed by a Week

Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC) had put first ever E- auction of 0.78 Million Tonnes (MnT) of Iron Ore last this week

Bhubaneswar: The first ever online auction of Iron ore by OMC, state owned miner, which was scheduled to be held on 27^th of this month  may be delayed for at least a week owing to lower than expected enrollment of buyers.

“The e-auction may be delayed by a week due to lower registration of buyers. We have about 120 buyers in our empanelled list but so far only 30 buyers have done registration to take part in the electronic process. As we are getting more enquiries each day,we want to provide some more time to the prospecting buyers” said an official at OMC.

In September, OMC had proposed the state government to sell 50 per cent of iron ore produced by it thorough online auction to end users while the rest of the mineral output are to be provided to companies based on a five-year supply pact. The user industries have signed agreement with the state government and are currently in operation. Price of such long term linkage will be fair market price as discovered through the E-Auction conducted by OMC for the remaining 50 per cent quantity.

In the first e-auction OMC has earmarked 417,000 MT Iron ore fines and 365,000 MT Iron ore lumps of different grades. OMC produced about 2 MnT Iron ore last fiscal.

Base fixed for Iron ore fines and lumps is lower than the offers by merchant miners.