Higher export duty coupled with subdued global prices led to an unprecedented 129 million tonne of pile-up of iron ore stocks at the mine heads, miners’ body FIMI said on Wednesday, urging the government to bring down various duties levied on the steel-making raw material immediately to save the sector.
The decision of the government of Odisha, where the maximum stock has piled up, not to allow more than 50% of the locally-produced raw material outside the state has also contributed to the accumulation, forcing many small miners to even stop production, said FIMI’s secretary general RK Sharma.
“As much as 129 MT of iron ore is lying at mine heads in various parts of the country mainly in Odisha and Jharkhand. Of these 110 MT are fines and the remaining 19 MT are lumps. The only way out to clear the stockpiles is lowering various duties levied on the raw material,” he said.
Domestic steelmakers generally do not use fines for iron making for want of the required technology available. However, these types of inferior grade raw material come out automatically when lumps or superior grade of iron ore are produced in the mines. Fines are mostly meant for exports.
