Taking the battle ahead with stand-alone iron ore miners, integrated steel producers like Tata Steel, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), Jindal Steel, Essar and Ispat Industries have come together to rubbish iron ore miners’ claim that off-take of fines by the steel manufacturers is low in the country.
Except for Tata Steel and SAIL, who have captive iron ore mines, all other steel producers use 100% fines for steel production. Overall domestic steel manufacturers use as high as 71% of iron ore fines for the sole reason that yield is much better than that of lump ore.
Players such as SAIL and Tata Steel have also started using over 56% of fines to
improve productivity. Companies such as Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), JSW, Essar and Ispat use 100% fines for steel production.
?SAIL has been using almost entire production of iron ore fines from captive iron ore mines to convert into sinter for making steel. Usage of iron ore fines for sinter and utilising the same results in better productivity and reduces energy consumption,? SAIL chairman SK Roongta said.
In the modernisation and expansion programme of the state-owned company to almost double its capacity to around 26 mt of hot metal, it has been envisaged that entire quantity of fines produced in captive mines would be used for making sinter and pellets, Roongta added.
A Tata Steel spokesperson said that the company has utilised 99% of the total fines produced during 2006-07. ?In the ongoing expansion plans at Jamshedpur from 5 mt to 10 mt, a pelletisation plant has also been planned that would help utilisation of 100% of the fines produced in the captive iron ore mines,? the spokesperson added.
JSW Steel joint managing director Y Siva Sagar Rao told FE that fines make a better feed for steel making than lumps as it gives higher productivity and low cost of production.
According to a study carried out by the Economic Research Unit (ERU) under the steel ministry, percentage of iron ore fines production across the country is likely to touch 72% by 2011-12 as against 52% in 2005-06. ?Use of pellets is highly recommended to achieve higher productivity, especially for high capacity blast furnaces,? chief economist of ERU Suchitra Sengupta said.
Miners, however, for long have been defending iron ore fine exports saying that there are no takers of fines in the country, which in turn leaves no option before them other than export. ?Of the 90 mt iron ore exports last year about 85% were fines as very few players in India go for lumps,? general secretary Federation of Indian Mineral Industries RK Sharma said.