To cater to the steel industry's growing appetite for manganese ore, state-owned MOIL has decided to raise its production to 3 million tonnes by 2030, a top company official has said.
In this regard, "a strategic management plan has already been prepared", MOIL Chairman M P Chaudhari said.
In order to meet the increasing demand of manganese ore coming from the steel industry, it is necessary to enhance the manganese ore production, he underlined.
"Accordingly, MOIL has planned to enhance its production from present level of around 1.10 MT to 2 MT by 2021, 2.50 MT by 2025 and 3 MT by 2030," he said in the company's annual report for 2016-17.
The company aims to become one of the best manganese ore mining companies of the world and in this direction, it has planned investments for development of existing mines, acquisition of new mines within and outside the country, acquisition of areas adjoining the mines besides setting up value addition/diversification projects, he added.
Giving the details, Chaudhari said that "investment proposal of Rs 460.88 crore has been approved by the board last year for sinking of high-speed vertical shaft at Gumgaon mine and Balaghat mine. These projects are expected to double production of these mines from about 3.70 lakh tonnes to 7.40 lakh tonnes by 2023-24 and 2014-25."
Also, for uninterrupted power supply the company is taking necessary action for setting up a 10.5 MW solar power plant at its mines in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. It is expected that the same will be installed during the current year.
In 2016, the chairman said India's steel production grew 7.40 per cent over 2015 whereas the world's steel production growth was only 0.80 per cent over the same period. India aims to triple its steel production capacity to 300 MT by 2030-31.
"The performance of manganese ore industry is directly linked with the performed of the steel industry," he said.
At present, MOIL operates 10 mines, six in Maharashtra and four in Madhya Pradesh. MOIL produces and sells different grades of Manganese Ore.
Manganese is mainly used in alloys such as steel. It increases the strength of steel.
Manganese steel or Mangalloy contains about 13 per cent manganese and is extremely strong and is used for railway tracks, safes, rifle barrels and prison bars. Managnese is also used in making cans of drinks.
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