Indian iron ore market overview - week 39, 2020
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Domestic iron ore prices in India remain supported on the back of tight availability. Below are the key market highlights of this week:
Odisha - Tight availability of iron ore in the merchant market continued to remain a concern. The High Court of Delhi granted a stay against any notice asking the Sarda mines to stop mining operations at Thakurani.
Odisha's major merchant miner - Odisha Mining Corp (OMC) plans to auction 687,000 t iron ore lumps on 01 Oct'20. The company is yet to declare the base price of the auction. The miner produced nearly 12.4 mn t iron ore in FY'20.
Odisha iron ore prices:
Ex-mines prices, inclusive of Royalty, DMF & NMET
Chhattisgarh - Steel Authority of India (SAIL) conducted an auction for 28,000 t iron ore fines (Fe 61%) on 24 Sept'20 from its Dalli Rajhara mines in Chhattisgarh. Entire quantity was booked at INR 3,720/t including royalty (loaded into rakes), against a set base price of INR 2,700/t, SteelMint learned. Material has been booked by a Raipur based pellet maker, sources reported.
According to market sources report to SteelMint, iron ore production from NMDC's Chhattisgarh mines have been impacted due to monsoons and increasing number of COVID cases in Bailadila. According to iron ore railway movement compiled by SteelMint, NMDC's iron ore dispatches from Chhattisgarh mines to the state-based units were recorded at 37 rakes (0.14 mn t) between 1st to 25th Sept against 33 rakes (0.13 mn t) in the same timeframe last month.
Karnataka - National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) had scheduled iron ore e-auction on 19th Sep'20 from its Kumaraswamy mines. Entire quantity of 112,000 t lump & fines got booked, majorly close to base price. JSW Steel remained the largest buyer at 92,000 t. KIOCL bought one lot of 8,000 t fines (Fe 62.2%) at INR 2,453/t (basic).
In yet another e-auction conducted on 19th Sept'20 by private miners, out of 372,000 t iron ore offered and nearly 97% of it got booked. Bid prices remained close to base price except few lots offered by SMIORE which fetched bids higher by INR120-300/t over the base price.
