NMDC to set up 14,000 cr steel plant at Chhattisgarh for

Hyderabad, Aug 29 (UNI) Navrathna iron ore producer National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) will set up a greenfield integrated steel plant of three million tonnes per annum capacity in Chhattisgarh costing about Rs 14,000 crore, as it planned mammoth four-fold increase in turnover to Rs 35,000 crore by 2014.

In its major foray into the steel-making segment, the foundation stone for the steel unit will be laid on September three at Nagarmar in the Bastar District, where the NMDC planned to utilise the iron ore and slimes from Bailadilla mines, using the HiSmelt technology developed by the Australian mining major Rio Tinto with whom it planned to partner in India and Abroad.

Talking to newspersons here today, NMDC Chairman and Managing Director Rana Som said ''Once the environmental clearance are through, NMDC has tied up with its EPC contractor to complete the steel plant in 36-months against the normal six-year period''.

With cooking and metalurgical coal escalating year by year, NMDC has entered into an MOU with Rio Tinto to make 0.08 MTPA pig- iron using the HiSmelt technology with bypasses coal heating process to make molten iron for feeding the blast furnace at Nagarmar.

NMDC has also lined up more than Rs 21000 crore investment, supported with mostly from internal accruals to produce 50 million tonnes iron ore by 2014-2015 up from 30 million tonnes it produced in 2007-2008. In the process it will set up Rs 200 crore beneficiation plant and 1.2 million tonnes per annum pelletisation plant costing with Rs 600 crore at Donimalai in Karnataka.

The second pelletisation plant with two million tonnes capacity costing Rs 750 crore would be set up at Bacheli in the Bailadila range in Bastar District of Chhattisgarh. The Kumaraswamy iron ore plant in Karnataka will be upscale to seven million tonne per annum from three million tonnes after clearance by the Karnataka High Court.

UNI DB KVV MP UCS2116 .