Mangaluru: Union Minister for Steel, Chaudhary Birendra Singh, today inaugurated the 1.3 Megawatt Solar power plant, Kudremukh Iron Ore Limited (KIOCL) has built at its blast furnace plant at Panambur Mangalore. This is part of a plan to meet at least 5 MW of the comapny’s requirement of 30 MW, the minister said in the presence of the CMD of KIOCL, MP, Nalin Kumar Kateel, the Steel Secretary, CMD’s of SAIL and MECON and the Asst. Director, NITK, Mangalore and host of other dignitaries and employees of the Company. He later laid the foundation stone for the modernizaton of the Blast (which would include a Coke oven battery and Ductile Iron Spun Pipe Plant for backward integration, besides refurbishing the Blast Furnace itself at a cost of 820 Crores) after which, addressing the huge gathering, he said its time that KIOCL upgraded its status from a mini Ratna to that of a Maharatna PSU.
This he said could be done through launching mega projects such as these, that would bring employment to the region and utilize the resources created by the Prime Minister’s Skill India scheme, in which KIOCL is an active participant.
The Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited (KIOCL) achieved 2.327 million tons of pellets production which translates into capacity utilisation of 66 per cent as compared to production of 1.46 million tons a year before. This is the highest volume of pellets produced in any single year since the closure of its captive mines, said Minister for Steel, Chaudhary Birendra Singh, attributing the achievement to innovative strategies adopted both in sourcing raw material and also in marketing pellets.
The Minister was speaking after reviewing the performance and the status of the new projects of its Mini Ratna Central Public Sector Undertaking, KICOL in the presence of Secretary of the department and other officials.
The Minister said that with 66 pc capacity utilisation achieved, the company should strive to its 100 per cent capacity in the coming years by adopting dynamic market conditions.
Talking about how the company has managed to find new markets in Japan, South Korea, UK, Vietnam and Oman, during its bid to look for market other than China, the Minister said that the KIOCL has made a conscious effort to reduce its dependency on Chinese market in order to partially mitigate the risk of high market volatility and to sustain its plant operations.
“While scouting out markets other than China, it was found that demand mainly existed for high grade iron ore pellets and the KIOCL started producing the same out of importing high grade iron ore fines under ‘Make in India concept,” he said adding that during the first half of Financial year 2018-19 has reported a Profit Before Tax of Rs 59.12 cr and Profit After Tax of Rs 45.89 cr, against the Rs 10.44 cr and Rs 8.35 cr respectively during the last financial year.
Lauding the company’s diversification steps, the Minister said that the KIOCL has taken up many projects such as setting up a solar power plant and the like.
He said that though the KIOCL is basically a mining company, which does not have captive iron ore mines to feed its pellet plant at Mangalore. Hence the company is focusing on acquisition of iron ore mines in India as well as overseas and setting up Beneficiation plants for upgrading the low grade ore.
As far as Karnataka is concerned, Singh said that the state government has reserved and notified 470.40 hectare area at Devadari, Sandur, Bellary district for mining of iron ore and at present the KIOCL is in the process of obtaining statutory clearance for execution of mining lease deed for commencement of mining operations here.
MP Nalin Kumar Kateel lauded the achievement of KIOCL and offered his help and support for all its projects. The Company signed an MOU with the National Institute of Technology – Karnataka for research and development in the field of Metallurgy.
Later addressing a press conference, the minister said that March 28th would be celebrated as Safe Steel Day, a day when safety acorss the steel sector is highlighted. He also mentioned the setting up of an R&D venture for the entire steel industry – both Private and Public Sector to facilitate improvements in and sharing of technology to meet the Country’s steel production targets.
Ministry of Steel Secretary Binoy Kumar, KIOCL CMD Subba Rao among others were present.
CMD, KIOCL, MV Subba Rao welcomed the gathering, while Director (Finance) delivered the vote of thanks.
