JSW Steel bags Ganua iron ore mine in Odisha

MUMBAI: JSW Steel has bagged its third iron ore mine in Odisha at Ganua through an e-auction, with a reserve of 118 million tonnes (MT)on Wednesday, sources said. The company is committed to pay 132% of its sale value to the Odisha Government.
The company previously won two other iron ore mines in Odisha, Nuagaon and Narayanaposhi with a total reserve of 790 MT and 190 MT respectively. Other participants for the new mine included Shyam Steel Industries and Amalgam steel.

JSW Steel, which has an annual capacity of 18 million tonne, had also won six category C- mines in Karnataka last year.

In total there were 18 mines in Odisha that are being auctioned, out of which, 5 were on JSW Steel's radar. The company has already won three and the bidding for Jilling Block of 70 MT reserve has begun today.

"The annual production capacity of this block is just 1.2 MT which can ideally scale up to about 3-4 MT. But the entire auction looks like there is an aggressive nature of bidding continues. In numbers, landed iron ore costs will be obnoxious for most of the players," said an analyst tracking the steel sector.

In JSW's perspective, they are on the right track. With Odisha and Karnataka put together they have secured around 20 MT of iron ore production but their requirement will be 40 MT, he said.

"We don't have much details to share now on the iron ore mines as the Odisha Government is yet to announce the winners officially and we are waiting for that," said JSW Steel Director (Commercial & Marketing), Jayant Acharya to ET.

The company is increasingly looking at iron ore mines in Odisha as the company is planning a greenfield steel project in the state at an investment amount of over Rs 53,000 crore.