The Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (Visakhapatnam Steel Plant) is now more secure on the raw material front as the Rajasthan Government has recently agreed to allot the Bhilwara iron ore mines (946 hectares) and the AP Government has allocated the Bayyaram mines in Khammam district, Chairman and Managing Director A.P. Choudhury said.
He said in an interview here on Wednesday that the RINL had all along suffered for want of captive iron ore mines, resulting in higher procurement cost of production, but there were positive developments in allotment of iron-ore mines in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha.
Bayyaram mines
He said the RINL was firm in the commitment it had made to the AP Government to invest in value addition facilities such as beneficiation and pelletisation plants and steel mill, depending on the quantum of iron ore reserves at Bayyaram and other mines.
The State government had said in April that, in the first phase, RINL would set up a beneficiation plant at Bayyaram and in phase-II an integrated steel plant would be set up in the same area. In all, 5,341.93 hectares in Bayyaram, Gudur (Warangal) and Bheemadevarapalli (Karimnagar) were allocated to the company. The CMD said a joint venture agreement would have to be signed with the AP Mineral Development Corporation.
He said the expansion project had almost been completed to take the capacity to 6.3 million tonnes with an investment of Rs 12,500 crore. RINL gets all the iron ore needed from the NMDC’s Bailadila mines now. He said RINL had drawn up an ambitious road map to achieve 20 million tonnes capacity by 2025 and, for that, more captive mines would be required.
He said the Bhilwara mines were estimated to have 267 million tonnes of iron ore deposits and the RINL would set up a pelletisation plant in that State.
On the delay in getting mines in Barbil, Odisha, through the Orissa Minerals Development Company, a subsidiary of RINL, he said he had met senior State Government officials to expedite forest and environment clearances.
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