Indian state-run miner NMDC Limited has increased its capital expenditure to $416 million for the fiscal year 2021-22 in order to ramp up annual iron ore production to 42 million mt, up from around 36 million mt at the close of the current fiscal year on March 31, 2021, a company official said on Friday, March 26.
The official said that, despite a production loss of 1.8 million mt during the April-June quarter of 2020-21, total production during the first three quarters of the current fiscal was already 10 percent higher than in the corresponding three quarters of the previous fiscal year.
According to the official, higher production next fiscal year will be achieved through resumption of mining operations at Donimalai iron ore mines in the southern state of Karnataka and by adding news mines at Deposit 13 and Deposit 4 at its Bailadial reserves at Chhattisgarh in central India.
The bulk of the capital expenditure would be spent on the construction of a slurry pipeline connecting mines at Bailadila and Jagdalpur, the 3 million mt per year greenfield steel mill nearing completion in Chhattisgarh, an iron ore pellet plant at Jagdalpur, and a screening plant at the company’s Kirandul mines.