SAIL has decided not to develop and operate the proposed 14 million tonnes per annum Rowghat iron ore mine project in Chhattisgarh; instead it would assign a private outsider for the job on entire mineral off-take contract at a prescribed price.
The SAIL Chairman, Mr C.S. Verma, confirming this to Business Line , said on Saturday at Burnpur that at a recently held pre-bid conference, there were participations of “more than 25” intending bidders including overseas miners.
“We would request expressions of interest for the project in the first half of the next fiscal, Mr Verma said.
The Rowghat deposit's 2,029-hectare F block that was allocated to Bhillai Steel Plant of SAIL in 2009 is estimated to contain 511 million tonnes of iron ore.
BSP's on-going capacity expansion was dependant on this resource project.
The SAIL Chairman said that though life of BSP's existing mine at Dalli-Rajhara, also in Chhattisgarh, had been extended by a few years, development and operation of the Rowghat project needed to commence without further delay so as to match the BSP's expansion schedule.
The delay has been caused activities and threats by ultra-Leftist outfits. Mr Verma said a couple of months ago, Railway Vikash Nigam Ltd had resumed work on construction of the 90-km track from Dalli-Rajhara to Rowghat.
BSP is slated to increase crude steel production capacity to 7 million tonnes per annum by March 2013 from current 5 million tonnes a year.
The Rowghat project envisaged no ore beneficiation plant and tailing dam at the site. The ore after crushing at the site is to be transported for beneficiation to Dalli Rajhara, according to the plan.
“The State Government promised to increase security level for the infrastructure work for the Rowghat project,” Mr Verma said.
Sindri SPV
According to Mr Verma, SAIL has spawned an SPV called SAIL Sindri Projects Ltd for setting up a steel unit and a urea manufacturing set up at closed Sindri unit of Fertiliser Corporation of India. He said SAIL Sindri Projects would have three subsidiaries – one each for steel, urea and power production.
SAIL Sindri Projects will have a 5.6 million tonne per annum steel plant at an investment of Rs 26,000 crore. It would also have a 1.15 mtpa urea unit for investment of Rs 4,450 crore. It also set up a Rs 4,000 crore power plant. The company will use 5482 acres of land of the FCI's Jharkhand unit.