India: Growing Iron Ore Fines Stockpile likely to affect Production Growth – FIMI

Bhubaneswar:  The Federation of Indian Mineral based Industries (FIMI) has expressed concerns over the growing Iron ore fines stockpile at the mines head and has warned that unless fines are evacuated from mines, production cannot be maintained. The mining body has called for adaptation of fines based technologies for steelmaking by steel industry.

At all, out of total Iron ore stockpile of 120 MnT, India level stockpile of fines at mines head was 100 MnT.. Out of 69 MnT of Iron ore (fines & lumps), Odisha itself had a stockpile of 62 MnT of fines. The stockpile has been growing due to several reasons like high export duty, restriction of Odisha government to mandatorily sell 50% of the raw material to the state based units.

“Steel industry in India especially in Odisha is basically lump based, so they do not use the fines. However, the 30% export duty on Iron ore has made export of fines unviable. On the other hand, the restriction imposed by the Odisha government to sell 50% production of lumps & fines for state based steel industry has further aggravated the accumulation of fines. Due to these reasons, large stock pile of fines at the mines head is going to be a major impediment for the growth of Iron ore production,” said H C Daga, President of  FIMI at the sidelines of a ’seminar on Iron ore & steel industry organized by FIMI’.

Domestic Ferro Alloys Industry should use Domestic Ore

Expressing its concern over growing import of Manganese & Chrome, FIMI has called on the domestic Ferro alloys industry to utilize domestic ore rather than imported ore.

“It is unfortunate that raw materials like Manganese & Chromite though available in plenty, are being imported at the cost of domestic availability resulting in closure of about 80% of Manganese mines, which has resulted large scale unemployment in mining areas and wastage of natural resources and valuable foreign exchange. In FY13, India imported 2.32 MnT of Manganese and 0.21 MnT of Chromite. So, our domestic Ferro alloys industry should be persuaded to utilize domestic ore rather than imported ore,” said FIMI’s President H C Daga.