The government of southern Indian state of Karnataka has sought immediate and urgent supplies of iron ore from Indian state-owned miner NMDC Limited for direct reduced iron (DRI) units in the state, a government minister said on Tuesday, March 14.
Karnataka minister R V Deshpande said that around 70 percent of the 67 DRI production units in Karnataka have been closed down due to a shortage of raw material from the country’s largest iron ore miner, NMDC Limited. He said that discussions were held with the federal Ministry of Mines and Karnataka has sought a directive from the federal government to NMDC to increase iron ore supplies to the DRI units in question.
According to industry estimates, Karnataka DRI units require around 9 million mt of low grade iron ore per year to enable the units to operate at full capacity.