KOLKATA: NMDC’s greenfield three million tonne steel plant is expected to be operational by third quarter of FY 2020-21. This was stated by the company’s chairman N Baijendra Kumar at its 61st annual general meeting on Friday. The Rs 15,000-crores plant is scheduled to be commissioned in three phases and various packages are at construction completion stage.
Sharing details on the plant’s progress he said cold trial of individual equipment under various packages is in progress. Kumar said that the operational power supply line is already energized and power was made available to various units of steel plant. Rail connectivity to the plant premises for initial traffic movement of material is in place. At present, overall site progress of civil works, structural erection and equipment erection are respectively at 95%, 92% and 78%.
With an output of 32.4 million tonne in FY18-19, NMDC is the country’s single largest iron ore producer with a market share of 24% in merchant mining and 15% in total India’s production (including captive) for FY18-19. It suffered a 3% y-o-y dip in in market share due to the suspension of mining activities in NMDC’s Donimalai mines in Karnataka which has a production capacity of seven million tonne per annum. Sharing the company’s Vision 2025 plan he said, to meet the growing requirement of iron on ore by the domestic steel industry, NMDC has made plans to increase its production capacity to 67 million tonne per annum. The strategy focuses on growth largely through brown field expansion of existing mines and improving evacuation along with it.
Source: Economic Times