JSW Steel bags third iron ore mine in Odisha

JSW Steel, which has plans to expand its capacity to 45 million tonnes per annum (MTPA), has bagged another iron mine in Odisha in the ongoing mine auctions with 118 million tonnes of reserves. JSW Steel won the largest iron ore block, the Nuagaon mine, in Odisha with estimated reserve of around 790 million tonnes (MT) on Friday followed by winning Narayanposhi iron block with 190 MT reserve on Sunday beating players like ArcelorMittal, Vedanta, Adani etc.

"JSW Steel today (Wednesday) has won another mine Ganua. This is the third consecutive mine it has won with 118 MT at 132 per cent premium," an industry source said. Another plus point for the company is that all these mines are operational, the source said.

Securing iron ore linkages in Odisha was very important for JSW Steel as the company is planning a green field steel project of 12 MTPA in the state at an investment amount of over Rs 53,000 crore. With bagging of Ganua mine, the Sajjan Jindal-led steel company firm now has an assured linkage of over 1,100 MT iron ore reserves in Odisha to met its future needs in the state and elsewhere.

"All the three wins will give JSW Steel around 25 MTPA of captive iron ore for its plants. Also, it has won 6 category C- Mines in last year in Karnataka which are now fully operational providing another 7-8 MTPA of iron ore," according to an expert. After the annulment of three notices inviting tender (NIT) in October 2019 for auction of iron ore and manganese blocks because of conflicts between participating bidders, the Odisha government released an NIT for 20 iron ore and manganese blocks on December 6, 2019.

While 15 of the 20 mines to be auctioned predominantly have iron ore, three have both iron ore and manganese, while the remaining are primarily manganese reserves. The 18 mines containing iron ore reserves together hold 1,600 million tonne of which 33 per cent (five mines) are reserved for specified end-use (captive usage). These are old mines where leases are set to expire in March 2020.

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