Government-owned iron ore producer National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) on Wednesday said that it is looking to e-auction about 2 lakh tonne of iron ore from Karnataka mines starting this week to provide some relief to the steel companies.
?I believe this (the auction) will take place this week. We are looking at a minimum quantity of 2 lakh tonne,? Rana Som, chairman, NMDC, said on Wednesday. He added that e-auctioning fetch better prices and also help evacuation of stocks.
NMDC produces around 1 million tonne of iron ore every month from the Bellary mines in Karnataka. Because of the inventory, the company has brought down its production from 33,000 tonne to 26,000 tonne per day. It has a stock of about 1.5 lakh tonnes in Karnataka including 92,000 tonne of iron ore lump.
It had stopped supplying iron ore to its long term clients, including JSW, Ispat Industries and Kudremukh Iron Ore, after the SC order last week asking it to supply iron ore in Karnataka only through e-auctioning. Som said the company was waiting for a nod from the monitoring committee of the state government to allow the e-auction.
The company will also join hands with Russian steel and mining company Severstal to set up a 3 million tonne per year steel plant in Karnataka by end of this year. ?This would be a 50:50 JV and we will sign an agreement with Severstal by December,? Som said.
The JV would have two subsidiaries ? a captive coking coal mining subsidiary in Russia and an iron ore mining subsidiary in India.