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The office of the Deputy Director of Mines (DDM), Joda circle, had banned sale of iron ore fines or powdery iron ore to sponge iron units a couple of months back. The DDM office had reiterated its stand in a letter issued to all mineral sellers last month.
The department argued that since plants need lump ores for production of sponge iron, there is a possibility that after screening large sized ore particles from fines, they would sell or export the leftover smaller particle as low grade fines.
As per the latest decision, the sponge plants can sell leftover mineral to domestic pellet units only.
“In a recent DDM conference, they were asked not to issue transport permit to sponge iron plants for export of leftover minerals. However, they (sponge iron makers) can sell the material to any domestic pellet or sinter unit,” said Deepak Mohanty, director of mines, Odisha government.
The sponge iron units usually buy iron ore fines of 5-18 mm size from all private and state-managed mines. Joda DDM office had imposed restriction on sale of iron ore fines of less than 10 mm size to sponge iron plants and said such fines would only be sold to pellet and sinter plants.
Many miners, including the state-owned ones, were sceptical about the operation of this decision. The mining unit of Industrial Development Corporation Odisha Ltd (IDCOL) recently floated a tender for sale of 30,000 tonne of iron ore fines as per the orders from the DDM office, but was not sure if it could sell the mineral. The company apprehended that since there were very few pellet makers in the state, compared with 100-plus sponge iron plants, it would be hard to sell large stock of fines.
IDCOL has about 140,000 tonne fines of 0-10 mm size stacked at its Roida mines currently. Though the amount of conversion of fines into pellet was low in Odisha compared to the generation of fines, recently it has picked up as many firms have shown interest to produce pellet. Currently, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, Brahmani River and Pellet Ltd, Essar Steel and Bhushan Steel and Power Ltd are engaged in production of pellets with a combined annual capacity of 18 million tonne.
Pellets or sinters are produced from dusty iron ore fines and are used as raw material for steel production. They can be used in place of sized iron ore in blast furnaces.
