NMDC Limited, the public sector mining major, has opened a new mine - the Kumaraswamy Iron Ore Mine — in Bellary district to increase its iron ore reserves. This comes in view of the depleting reserves in its Donimalai mines in the district. Simultaneously, the company is also exploring new mines in the state.
“With further geological exploration, additional mineral resources of 20 million tonne in Donimalai iron ore mine is anticipated to extend the present life of Donimalai mine by another 4-5 years. Considering this, it is now proposed to operate two mines in the Bellary-Hospet sector, Donimalai and Kumaraswamy Iron Ore Mines. With this, the iron ore availability from the Bellary-Hospet sector would also drastically improve,” Rana Som, chairman and managing director, NMDC Limited, said.
In his address to the shareholders at the 53rd annual general meeting, Som said the new exploration has yielded positive result for the company over the last year.
Its iron ore reserves of the company has gone up 7.5 per cent to 1.56 billion tonnes as on March 31, 2011, as against 1.45 billion tonnes a year ago. It expects the reserves to go up further to 2.17 billion tonnes once the exploration results are established.
“The company’s biggest strength has been in its possessing large reserves of high grade iron ore at its existing mines at Bailadila and Donimalai. The company has been consistently active in carrying out planned exploration works in its existing mines,” he said. The new exploration studies have indicated additional reserves of 111 million tonnes of iron ore in the Bailadila sector alone. Considering the geological continuity of ore deposits, it is expected that additional occurrence of 611 million tonne iron ore reserves could be established, he said.
Som said the company has also embarked on ensuring ‘zero-waste mining’ in its mines. It is now proposed that BHJ and BHQ ore could also be valuably beneficiated to produce around 64-65 per cent Fe grade iron ore. The company proposes to set up a plant to process this ore at Donimalai, he said.
For the year 2010-11, NMDC achieved production of 25.15 million tonnes of iron ore as against 23.80 million tonnes, showing a growth of 5.6 per cent over the previous year.