Indian state-owned steelmaker Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) will not pursue development of an iron ore reserve allocated to it in the state of Rajasthan owing to the poor quality of the raw material, a company official said on Friday, February 24.
The official said that government-owned Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL) mandated to explore the block had established a reserve of around 200 million mt but this was of very low grade iron ore and found unsuitable for the operation of RINL’s steel mill, located in the southern Indian port town of Vishakhapatnam.
However, the decision not to go ahead with developing the Rajasthan iron ore block will not hamper RINL’s ongoing expansion, he added. The annual output capacity of RINL’s Vishakhapatnam steel mill will increase to 7.3 million mt per year from the current level of 6.3 million mt per year by the end of the current year, the official said.