Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), the mining arm of the government of the Indian state of Odisha, has decided to cut the base price for forthcoming auction of iron ore fines and lumps, a government official said on Friday, November 27.
The Odisha government official said that the base price for lumps will be reduced by 31 percent, while that for high grade fines will be cut by 24 percent, starting from auctions in December, in reaction to the failure to find any takers in previous rounds of auction sales.
At the auctions in October, OMC maintained the base price unchanged despite poor bidding. The floor price for lumps was kept in range of INR 2,200-2,350/mt ($33-35/mt), while the floor price for high grade fines (with Fe content of 63.5 percent and higher) was kept at INR 1,500/mt ($22.50/mt).
In the last round of the October auction, OMC failed to find a single bidder for 219,000 mt of iron ore fines. Regarding the 224,000 mt of iron ore lumps on offer, OMC was able to sell only 43 percent of this volume, the official added.