India’s southern state of Karnataka has initiated moves to increase the court-imposed cap on iron ore mining of 30 million mt per year, a Karnataka government official said on Thursday, July 13.
The official said that appropriate authorities including the Central Empowered Committee appointed by India’s Supreme Court, which imposed the annual production cap, would be approached to increase the limit in view of rising demand for the raw material from steel mills located in the state.
Although the official did not specify the increase in the limit that would be sought, he said that the Karnataka government has estimated that demand for iron ore from steel mills located in the state would rise to around 50-55 million mt per year by 2020.
Citing an example, he said that JSW’s steel mills in Karnataka would alone require an estimated 22 million mt of raw material from mines located in the region, while another eight million mt has been required by the direct reduced iron (DRI) route-based steel mills located in Karnataka and, given the current cap on annual production, this leaves little raw material available for other steel producers.