Affected by the downturn in the steel sector, India-based KIOCL Limited (formerly Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited ) has diversified into offering “operating and maintenance (O&M) services” for steel projects, a company official said on Thursday, September 3.
O&M services is expected to be a separate independent revenue stream at a time when the company’s own 7.5 million mt per year iron ore beneficiation plant and 3.5 million mt per year pelletization plant are operating far below capacity and proving a drain on the company, the official said.
The low capacity utilization of KIOCL’s own plants has made a large number of trained and experience manpower redundant which could be redeployed in contract O&M services for other steel plants across the country, he added.
KIOCL has already won several O&M contracts including the one with Orissa Mining Corporation (OMC) to operate and manage OMC’s 140,000 mt per year chromite beneficiation plant. It has also signed an O&M contract with the state-owned iron ore miner NMDC for the iron ore beneficiation and pelletization plant at Donimalai iron ore reserves in the southern Indian province of Karnataka.