Ore mining operations resume in Karnataka after year's ban
After more
than a year, Karnataka-based iron ore miner Mineral Enterprises Ltd (MEL)
resumed mining operations on Thursday at its Chitradurga mine. This followed the
granting of permission by the southern Indian state’s department of mines and
geology, a senior company official told Platts Steel Business
Briefing.
“We are back in business,” the official said. “We are the first
to restart (iron ore) mining operations in the state. This is a significant
development in the sense that mining has commenced again in Karnataka,” he
added.
MEL has been granted approval to mine up to 380,000 tonnes/year
of ore from the mine which previously produced 700,000 t/y, the official said.
He expected it would take about a month from now for MEL to offer its first ore
consignment for sale through the electronic auctions being conducted by
state-owned trader MSTC.
India’s Supreme Court enforced a ban on mining
in the state since August 2011 after investigations conducted by the court’s
Central Empowered Committee (CEC) highlighted environmental damage brought about
by rampant illegal mining. Only state-owned miner NMDC was permitted to produce
and sell ore through the MSTC auctions.
Following a series of hearings,
in April the court accepted the CEC’s recommendations that some mines deemed
legal be allowed to restart following reclamation and rehabilitation but that
the state’s total output be capped at 30m t/y.
MEL’s Chitradurga mine was
among the few recently approved by the CEC for restart. Sesa Goa’s operation in
Chitradurga also figures in the committee’s list but final approvals to restart
were yet to be received, a company spokesman told Platts SBB on Friday.
The restart of mining in Karnataka is not seen likely to affect the
export market in the near-term. This is because ore produced in the state will
continue to be sold through electronic auctions for at least another two years
with only domestic end-users eligible to participate in these sales, the Supreme
Court ruled in April.
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