Steel mills in Karnataka seek for immediate relief is supply of Iron ore

Steel production in Karnataka is witnessing a drastic fall due
to supply of poor quality iron ore.

The industry says that over 22 million tonnes (MT) of iron
ore from the stock of 25 MT has already been auctioned and remaining ore has
big presence of alumina, silica and manganese, leading to fall in production as
these contents can not be removed.

“We are running our blast furnaces at 70 per cent capacity.
We are hoping to get an immediate relief from the Supreme Court,” JSW Steel's
Joint Managing Director and CFO, Mr Seshagiri Rao, told PTI.

He added that “availability of quality iron ore is a
challenge … quality is not good, it contains 5-6 per cent mix of alumina,
silica and manganese . This can not be removed.”

Besides, other iron and steel makers in Karnataka, which
produces about 16 MT of the metal alloy every year, have also lowered their
production “substantially” due to lower quality and depleting stocks of iron
ore, industry sources said.

Expressing similar views, an official of a leading sponge
iron manufacturer in the state, said, “Stocks of iron ore has nearly been
exhausted and quality of the ore is inferior. Our equipment and machinery would
become permanently unusable at the quality. It's better not to produce.”

The companies are hoping that the apex court would partially
lift the ban, following the submission of final report of Central Empowered
Committee (CEC) last month.