India: Raga Tradecon places highest bid for Netrabandha iron ore block

Raga Tradecon has placed the highest bid for the Netrabandha iron ore block in the ongoing mines auctions in Odisha at a premium of 139.5%, SteelMint learnt from sources.

Sources informed SteelMint that there were eighteen technically qualified bidders for the Netrabandha iron ore block with the highest bid being around 80.1% by Ramgad Minerals.

The companies which had placed initial bids in cleared the technical round for Netrabandha iron ore block are - Ramgad Minerals, TP Sao, RML, Kashvi, Sri Jagannath, Bajrang Power, Lal Traders, Raga Tradecon, Shyam Steel, Saroj Patnaik, Tarini Minerals, Transtek, JSPL, SN Mohanty, Vedanta, Bhushan Power, Sunflag and Neo Metaliks.

The virgin mine has an area of 74.370 hectares (ha) with explorations done up to the G2 level. The mine has total geological resources of 15.765 million tonnes (mn t) (Fe 55% cut off) and 1.5 mn t (Fe 45-55%).

The government has put 10 iron ore blocks under the hammer in this round. Odisha's Department of Steel and Mines expects to complete the auction process by Sept'21-end and after the current tranche of 11 mineral blocks, it may auction another five blocks as composite leases. The Odisha government is expected to announce the technically qualified bidders for other mines gradually in the coming days.