JSW Steel bags 4th iron mine in Odisha auctions

Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Steel has bagged fourth iron ore mine in the ongoing auctions in Odisha with the latest win of Jajang block that holds estimated reserves of 39 million tonnes,

a source privy to the development said on Thursday.

With the latest catch, an iron ore reserves linkage of more than 1,100 million tonnes has been secured for the company which plans to set up a 12 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) steel plant involving huge investment of around Rs 53,000 crore in Odisha.

JSW Steel won Odisha's largest iron ore block, the Nuagaon mine, with estimated reserves of around 790 million tonnes (MT) on Friday, followed by Narayanposhi iron block with 190 MT reserves on Sunday and Ganua iron ore mine with 118 MT reserves on Wednesday in the auctions in which players like ArcelorMittal, Vedanta, and Adani also placed bids.

 

"JSW Steel today (Thursday) has won the fourth mine in Odisha. This mine with 39 MT iron ore reserves has been bagged at 110 per cent premium," the industry source said.

Securing iron ore linkages would come as a shot in the arm for JSW Steel which looks to scale up its steel making capacity from the current 18 MTPA to 45 MTPA.

The company will be self-sufficient in the key raw material of iron ore for years now, an expert said.

Of the 20 mines on the block, JSW Steel had submitted technical bids for only five mines and of that it has won four, the person said adding the fifth one was Jiling mine.

After the annulment of three notices inviting tender (NIT) in October 2019 for auction of iron ore and manganese blocks because of conflicts between participating bidders, the Odisha government released an NIT for 20 iron ore and manganese blocks on December 6, 2019.

While 15 of the 20 mines to be auctioned predominantly have iron ore, three have both iron ore and manganese, while the remaining are primarily manganese reserves.

The 18 mines hold iron ore reserves of 1,600 million tonnes of which 33 per cent (five mines) are reserved for specified end-use (captive usage). These are old mines where leases are set to expire in March 2020.