Iron and steel companies in South
India have approached the Supreme Court again, seeking permission for “clean” iron ore mining companies to restart operations in Karnataka.
“The stockpile of 25 million
tonnes put up for sale through e-auction would last till April 2012. To ensure
continuous supply to steel mills, it's essential to restart mining by at least clean mining companies. So, we have made a request to the apex court
through the Karnataka Iron and Steel Manufacturers Association (Kisma) to give
permission for clean mining companies,” said Vinod Nowal, director and chief
executive of JSW Steel.
Nowal said, Kisma would make
another appeal on January 20, when the apex court restarts hearing the case.
So far till December, the
monitoring committee appointed by the court has conducted 17 e-auctions and put
up around 14 mt of iron ore for sale. Of this, 10 mt were sold and JSW Steel
picked up 6.6 mt. JSW's Vijayanagar plant bought 5.9 mt, the Salem plant took 448,000
tonnes and JSW Ispat won 304,000 tonnes. However, the three companies got a
delivery of only 2.7 mt.
“Due to logistical reasons we
could take a delivery of less than half of what we bought at the auctions. The
state government has allowed the movement of iron ore from 6 am to 10 pm and
this restriction has affected our production schedule. It would be difficult
for us to resume normal production without the continuous movement of ore,” Nowal said.
He said the company would resume
normal production by the end of January. Presently, it has achieved a capacity
utilisation of 80 per cent at its 10-mtpa steel plant at Toranagal in Bellary.
Leave a Reply