The high-level meeting between the government of eastern India’s state of Odisha, India’s Ministry of Steel and POSCO India held earlier this month failed to break the deadlock and salvage the latter’s 10 million mt steel project for India, a senior official at the Ministry of Steel said on Monday, October 26. The official said that none of the proposals put forward by the Odisha government were acceptable to the Ministry of Steel.
The Odisha government at the meeting put forward proposals envisaging a separate joint venture between POSCO and the government owned and operated Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) to undertake mining and enter into an exclusive agreement for supply of iron ore to the proposed POSCO steel mill in the coastal town of Paradip in Odisha, the official said.
However, how any iron ore reserves in Odisha could be allocated to either the joint venture or POSCO remained unresolved as the auction route was made mandatory for all allocation of mineral resources and as POSCO did not declare its intention regarding participation in any such auctions, the official said.
He went on to say that the Ministry of Steel ruled out any allocation of iron ore reserves on a preferential basis even though the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Odisha government and POSCO to set up the steel mill was signed a decade ago before allocation of mineral resources by auction was made mandatory.