India’s Tata Steel Limited has initiated talks with government-run miners like NMDC Limited and Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) to secure future ore supplies as the steelmaker ramps up its domestic capacity, a Tata Steel official said on Monday, December 12.
Tata Steel will also operationalise two new iron mines namely Kalamang West and Gandalpada as part of its strategy to ensure raw material security, company vice president, raw materials, D. B. Sundara Ramam, said in a statement.
At present, Tata Steel meets its entire demand for iron ore, a key raw material used for manufacturing steel, from six iron ore mines operated by the company in Odisha and Jharkhand.
Mr. Ramam said the raw material plan has been carved out as the leases of four mines - Noamundi iron ore mine (operated since 1925), Katamati and Khondbond (since 1933) and Joda East (since 1956) - are expiring in March 2030.
Meanwhile, two other mines NINL (Mithirda) and Vijay II will continue to remain operational. The mines came along with the acquisition of the NINL plant and Usha Martin's steel business, he said.
The company's road map is to ensure iron supplies as it looks to increase domestic steel manufacturing capacity to 40 million mt per year by 2030, from 22 million mt per year at present.
Tata Steel produced 38 million mt of iron ore in 2023-24 and plans to produce 41 million mt. For its planned 40 million mt per year steelmaking capacity, the company would need to secure 60 million mt of iron ore supplies.