Tata Steel has shipped first consignment of iron ore fines from its Canadian resource project to its European plants.
The consignment is from the project called the direct shipping ore (DSO) and is part of the several iron ore projects that Tata Steel is pursuing in Canada.
Tata Steel Minerals Canada (TSMC), an 80 per cent owned outfit by Tata Steel, sent across North Atlantic 77,000 tonnes of fines on September 14 from Sept-Îles — an iron ore terminal on the St. Lawrence River that links Great Lakes to North Atlantic. During this fiscal, Tata Steel plans to ship one million tonnes of processed iron ore – fines or pallets.
To provide iron ore security to Corus units in the UK and the Netherlands, Tata Steel has been pursuing the projects since the 2006 acquisition. In 2013-14, Tata Steel planned to ship one mt and in 2014-15 its target is three mt.
Rail movement
The fines movement on rail had begun in July from TSMC’s crushing and screening plant to the terminal. TSMC had produced three lt of fines last year and it has resumed production this summer in the sub-arctic eastern Canada, Tata Steel sources told Business Line .
“Production and rail haulage from the DSO project are now well established and seaborne shipments have now begun,” a statement from TSMC said. Sources, however, said the current port arrangement is interim. “We are working on an alternative plan – an access to an upcoming port facility,” a company official said.
The DSO project’s underlying asset contains 64.1 mt of proven and probable reserves of a little less than top grade iron (58.8 per cent) content.
Tata Steel also is involved in exploratory projects in Canadian Quebec and Labrador and Newfoundland.
jayanta.mallick@thehindu.co.in