Key takeaways from FIMI's Sustainable Mining Summit 2024

A pronounced focus on sustainable mining through maximising usage of raw materials of improved quality in steel making were stressed upon at the recently-concluded two-day "Sustainable Mining Summit". The conference was organised by the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) in Bhubaneswar on 13-14 June,2024.

The summit deliberated on various issues concerning sustainability, which will result in formulation of a roadmap for sustainable mining in India. India's mining sector contributes significantly less of about 3% to the GDP percentage-wise compared to other nations but demonstrates a higher growth rate. India is likely to exhibit robust 10% CAGR growth, boosting mining to 5.6% of GDP by 2028. However, the Indian mining industry grapples with hurdles like -

1. Regulatory (Complex permitting process, land acquisition laws, forest clearance, royalty and taxation)

2. Environmental (Biodiversity loss, air pollution, deforestation)

3. Infrastructural (Inadequate road and rail infrastructure, limited availability of industrial infrastructure)

4. and Social hurdles (Community consultation and participation, conflicts over land rights, health & safety concerns)

Collaboration between the government and industry is essential to ensure the sustainable growth of Indian mining sector by developing innovation in digitisation, investments in R&D sector and form diverse teams for recommendations with government, mine owners, MDOs, and others, he added.

The pre-embedded clearance for the mines or mineral blocks which are ready to be put up for auction is to be done through a PMU.

In financial year 2024 (FY'24), the supply of iron ore above Fe65% shrunk by 20% y-o-y to 32 mnt. The supply of Fe62-65% iron ore increased markedly but only after a period of sharp decline over the last few fiscals. The production of grades below Fe58% has been increasing rapidly over the last many fiscals. This poses a serious challenge in production of higher grades of steel development of the DRI-dependent IF-EAF steel production route utilisation of domestic iron ore reserves to sustain fast-evolving growth in steel production containing/restricting/minimising the level of emissions from steel production.

Studies show that higher the iron content in feed, the lower is the slag volume generated in blast furnace, which increases the productivity and reduces the coke rate. India's iron ore beneficiation capacity is likely to increase to 143 mnt in FY'25 and then further to 170 mnt by FY'30 from current installed capacity of around 136 mnt. The Indian government is developing a policy for low-grade iron ore beneficiation to increase steel production by making best use of low-grade domestic ore.