With plans of exporting iron pellets to China falling through and efforts to gain a captive mine in the State yielding no results, Mangalore-based KIOCL is now looking for a bilateral agreement with the government of Iran to import iron ore and export pellets.
Interacting with presspersons on the sidelines of the launch of the Kudremukh Tree Park at Pilikula on Monday, Malay Chatterjee, chairman-cum-managing director of the iron processing company, said KIOCL had contacted the Ministry of Steel to take forward discussions on the matter.
“On a rupee-trade mechanism, KIOCL is proposing to open up export mechanism with Iran. The Iranian Minister of Mining had visited Delhi and overviewed the functioning of the company. KIOCL can play a role in meeting the big demands there…We are upbeat about this and the ministry is also supporting the proposal,” he said.
Iran, Mr. Chatterjee said, would import more than 20 million tonnes of iron pellets over the next five years, and KIOCL had the capacity to produce 4 million tonnes annually. “They have iron ore there, but do not have enough plants to produce high-grade 65 plus (Iron content) pellets,” he said, adding that the value addition to the ore imported would be considered as export. The proposal follows the failure of the plan to export pellets to China. Earlier this year, Mr. Chatterjee had told presspersons that three lakh tonnes of pellets would be exported to China in the first three months of the year.
However, after the first shipment of 50,000 pellets, the exports stopped. Though they were expecting 162 dollars per tonne, Mr. Chatterjee said the prices “dropped drastically” and stopped becoming competitive. “They were offering us the same price as that in the domestic market. There was no advantage of export. We had to stop after just one shipment,” he said.
With the proposal to acquire mine blocks in Karnataka at Chikkanayakahalli (10 million tonnes iron ore reserve) and Ramanadurg (30 million tonnes) still being considered by the State government, KIOCL is struggling to make use of its 3.5 million tonne production plant in Mangalore.
