After a series of meetings with Iranian miners, the Indian Steel ministry has finally received a nod for importing iron ore, to be utilized for value addition in the country.
To know more about this, we spoke to Malay Chatterjee, CMD, KIOCL.
KIOCL, which operates a 3.5 MnT pellet plant at Mangalore, is all set to import Iron ore in huge quantities for value addition, being facilitated by the Steel ministry and promoted by the Commerce ministry.
This move will help KIOCL propagate ‘Make In India’ slogan of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said the Chairman.
The Pellet producer is anticipated to import 1 MnT magnetite iron ore (nearly Fe 65%) dumps stocked at Bandar Abbas port, one of the largest sea port in Iran. When asked about the arrival time, the sooner the better, he said.
The company is done with sampling and testing of the material and is confident of making Fe 65% pellets out of the rich grade fines, which will be exported to DRI plants in Iran.
Continual downtrend in global iron ore prices has improved demand for rich grade iron ore, which we are advocating, he added.
Not only Iran, the company is likely to initially receive 100,000 MT high grade (Fe 67%) Iron ore from Brazil in July’15, expected to be discharged from port of Brazil on 15 June. The superior quality iron ore will be utilized for Pellet making and for exporting to consumers world wide.
KIOCL’s captive iron ore mine at Kudremukh is closed since 01 Jan 2006 in pursuance of judgment of Hon’ble Supreme Court.
The iron ore fines sourced from NMDC’s Bailadila mines has to be transported 1500 kms by rail to Vizag port and then transferred by ship to Mangalore port, adding up large amount of logistics costs. In addition, KIOCL has to bear extra burden from the Indian railways in the name of Distance Based Charge (DBC), which is 3 times more than they were normally charged earlier.
Apart from this, the company is further saddled with the 5% export duty on pellets, imposed by Govt. of India.
Sales in domestic market are nonviable because of falling prices and weak demand. Improved Iron ore supply in domestic market and economical imports, hit KIOCL’s domestic production and sales in FY15.
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