Indian state-owned company NMDC Limited, which is readying to operationalize its greenfield steel mill next year, will be contracting for Australian coking coal to be blended with domestic coal as feedstock for its blast furnace (BF), company sources said on Thursday, November 29.
The sources said that the entire coking coal requirement for NMDC’s 3 million mt per year steel mill in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh could not be sourced from local mines and hence its blast furnace has been constructed to take in blended coal.
The first contract of 80,000 mt of coking coal from Australia has already been delivered as the plant is being readied for trial runs, and commercial production is expected to commence by July 2019, the sources added.