Urges Industry to ramp up Manganese & Chrome Ores Production

The Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) has reiterated the need for enhancing both exploration and production of manganese and chrome ores in the country.

In the recently organized Manganese/Chrome Ores, EMD, EMM and Ferro-Alloys Summit held in Kolkata in Jan. 2023 organized by FIMI & MOIL wherein Vizag Industrial Scan was media partner industry leaders called upon the need for achieving Atmanirbharata in raw materials.

With the National steel policy 2017 envisaging an ambitious crude steel production target of 300 MTPA by the year 2030 it is even more pressing that sufficient amounts of raw materials such as manganese ore, chrome ore and ferro-alloys are available.

It is informed that to meet the 300 MTPA target the present capacity needs to be enhanced by 1.94 times i.e. from 154 million tonnes to 300 million tonnes in the next 7 years.

‘This would translate into a requirement of 11 million tonnes of manganese ore and 5 million tonnes of chrome ore as per the National Steel Policy 2017. This can only be achieved when the manganese, chrome ore and ferro-alloys industry gears up and enhances its output much before 2030.

With abundant resources and Government’s plans, there is huge potential in the Indian manganese/chrome ore and ferro-alloys sector’ said Mr. Pankaj Satija, Managing Director, Tata Steel Mining Limited and Member, Managing Committee, FIMI.

Industry estimates that India is endowed with huge resources of manganese ore to the tune of 503 million tonnes and chrome ore to the tune of 331 million tonnes as on April, 2020.

However despite possessing rich resources, the domestic mining industry remains under harnessed and the ferro-alloy industry is compelled to import these minerals. During 2021-22, ore production was 2.69 million tonnes in respect of manganese ore and 3.78 million tonnes in case of chrome ore.

The gap in domestic production and consumption is being increasingly met through imports. Manganese ore import witnessed a quantum jump to 6.50 million tonnes in 2021-22 from 3.95 million tonnes in 2020-21 and for chrome ore, import increased to the tune of 0.24 million tonnes during the year in comparison to 0.16 million tonnes in 2020-21.

There is an urgent need to have enhanced focus for undertaking detailed exploration of manganese and chrome ore resources to establish the proven reserve to meet the growing domestic and international demand of ferroalloy.

Therefore manganese and chrome ore producers need to focus on increased mineral production coupled with productivity and quality improvements, technology as well as aggressive exploration strategies for locating and defining additional reserves to survive in the increasingly competitive global market and create value for the country and stakeholders.

The Indian Ferro alloy industry is under huge pressure due to fluctuating demand, high power costs and cut-throat competition in the international market. Despite having a total production capacity of 5.15 million tonnes per annum (5.1 million tonnes per annum for bulk ferroalloys and 50,000 tonnes per annum noble ferroalloys) in the ferro-alloy industry, the industry has been seeing a slowdown with low capacity utilization.