With sale of iron ore from Karnataka mines, including state-owned NMDC, having fallen sharply, miners may have to cut prices of the raw material in order to clamp down the glut situation, industry officials and brokerages said on Monday. State-owned iron ore miner, NMDC Ltd has the highest contribution to Karnataka's iron ore production which now stands at a ceiling of 35 million tonne from 30 million earlier. NMDC produces about 12 million tonne ore annually from its Donimalai mine in the state.
“There is no option but to lower ore prices if the material has to get lifted. This may not happen immediately but over a period of three to six months, we see iron ore prices correcting in Karnataka,” said a senior Mumbai-based analyst on condition of anonymity. Currently, Karnataka iron ore is priced close to Rs 3,000 per tonne as against the Odisha ore which is close to Rs 1,600. “Karnataka ore price is (even usually) higher than Odisha because demand is much strong compared to supply in this state. Since the state has a ceiling for production, there is always shortage of ore and hence prices are always beefy here,” H Khayyumali, director of Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (South) told Business Standard.
No comments:
Post a Comment