Despite the announcement from the government of western Indian state of Goa that 40 iron ore mines will resume production now that monsoon rains are over, several miners are slow in getting back into production owing to restrictive policies, mine owners said on Friday, November 4.
At least two mine owners said that the number of mines resuming operations will be far short of government’s expectations as neither the local nor the central government has taken any steps to relax restrictive policies.
The mine owners said that miners are disappointed that the Goa government is yet to make any relaxation on the ban imposed on miners from using dumping rejects beyond the lease hold areas of respective miners.
It was pointed out that this is crucial since in the current depressed demand situation for iron ore fines in China, miners are forced to carry higher stocks and rejects or the miners will have little option but to cut back production as handling rejects will be a formidable challenge.
Goa miners are also hesitating to resume operations as there is no clarity yet on the process of distribution of production among the various mines from the cap of 20 million mt per year set by India’s Supreme Court for the entire state.
Mines which were allocated a production quota from the 20 million mt per year ceiling have not commenced production, while those mine owners which are ready to commence production have not received their production quota, the miners said.