India: OMDC likely to restart iron ore production from Oct

Orissa Mineral Development Company is likely to resume mining operations at its Bagiaburu iron ore mine by October, SteelMint has learnt from reliable sources. This decision comes on the heels of the recent Supreme Court order allowing OMDC to resume mining operations at all three mines, Bagiaburu (iron ore), Belkundi (iron ore and manganese ore) and Bhadrasahi (iron ore and manganese ore). These are part of the six mines that it had received some years back from the state of Odisha.

The decision comes after the company made the court-ordered payment of compensation in a case.

A high-ranking official at Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), of which OMDC is a subsidiary, said, there are two issues for which OMDC had gone to the Supreme Court (SC). One was to allow it to start its mining operations and secondly, to also allow it to sell the stocks lying in the mining pits.

Although the apex court has allowed resumption of mining operations at all the three mines, the order has come with a clause that the company will have to take all the necessary approvals.

Approval status

Where the approval status is concerned, the official informed that with regard to Bagiaburu, the environmental clearance (EC) is at an advanced stage. "And here we have moved a tender proposal to fix an MDO for the mine too," the official said, adding, "For Bagiaburu, we had been thinking of starting production in September, but October would be the probable month to start mining operations there."

Where the other two mines are concerned, OMDC has applied for forest clearance (FC) which is under processing. Once the FC is received, only then can OMDC get the EC. However, the pandemic is getting in the way of resumption of mining in the other two blocks and "is going to take some time" the official informed.

In order to get the EC for these two mines, a public hearing is required. But, because of COVID-19, the public hearing criterion is not being fulfilled, since it would involve assembly of people at a point. "The Collector has got the instruction from the Pollution Control Board to carry out the public hearing.

But his office is not being able to conduct the same because of the pandemic," the official indicated.

"But everything has been cleared in the sense that there is a green signal from the government that we can go ahead with the mining operations and that is applicable to all the three mines," the official said.

Stock scenario

The total available stock to dispose of is not very high, at around 3 lakh tonnes, and this volume has been lying there since around 2010-11, it is learnt.

However, more importantly, the EC limit is around 4 lakh tonnes per annum of production from the three mines, the official informed.

All the three mines together have reserves in excess of 110 million tonnes (mn t). Bagiaburu has reserves of 4.96 mn t of iron ore in which the EC limit is 0.36 mn t per annum. Belkundi's iron ore reserves are at 25.53 mn t and manganese ore, at 15.88 mn t. The EC limits are 1.8 and 0.3 mn t respectively.

Bhadrasahi's iron ore reserves are at 81.03 mn t of iron ore and 10.43 mn t of manganese ore. Here, the EC limits are 1.8 mn t and 0.12 mn t respectively.

OMDC has iron ore and manganese ore mine leases in Barbil, Odisha which have estimated reserves of around 206 mn t of iron ore and 44 mn t of manganese ore.