India’s Ministry of Mines has permitted state-run steel producer Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) free merchant sale of iron ore from its captive mines up to 25 percent of the ore it produced in the previous year, a ministry notification issued on Wednesday, September 18, said.
According to the notification, to ensure raw material availability of domestic steel mills, SAIL will be allowed free merchant sale of iron ore amounting to up to 25 percent of its production from its 20 captive iron ore mines, for the next two years.
SAIL operates 20 iron ore mines across the states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal producing an average 28 million mt of iron ore per year. As a result, the company has been allowed to sell up to 7 million mt of iron ore per year to the market.
The Mines Ministry has also allowed SAIL free merchant sale of an estimated 70 million mt of low grade iron ore, including slime lying idle at pitheads, to domestic steel mills.
The ministry said that since the five steel mills operated by SAIL could not use low grade iron ore fines and did not have beneficiation or pelletization capacities of their own, the idle stock of sub-grade fines should be made available in the market.