The NMDC Board at its meeting on Friday has recommended highest ever first interim dividend of 950 percent for the year 2015-16 amounting to Rs3,766 crore, a company statement informed.
NMDC, India’s largest iron ore producer and exporter, has several iron ore mines in leftist insurgency-hit Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh. The mines which have the finest quality of iron ore, are basically located at Kirandul and Bacheli areas which jointly form a sprawling Bailadila hill.
NMDC’s production of iron ore during the 3rd quarter is 7.36 million tonnes (MT) registering a fall of 9 percent over the corresponding period last year (CPlY), while sales of iron ore was 7.22 MT, which is about 4 percent more than that of the CPlY.
NMDC has posted a turnover of Rs1,517 crore, representing a fall of 49 percent in turnover of CPlY. NMDC has recorded profit before tax (PBT) of Rs1,011 crore and profit after tax (PAT) of Rs655 crore in the 3rd quarter of 2015-16 which is down by around 58 percent and 59 percent respectively over CPlY.
The company’s production of iron ore for 9 months for the year 2015-16 is 19.79 MT registering a fall of 12 percent over CPlY while sales of iron ore was 20.33 MT which is 11 percent down than that of the CPlY.
Top NMDC official say that the company is in the process of setting up 3 MTPA steel plant and a 2 MTPA pellet plant at Nagarnar in Chhattisgarh’s insurgency-hit Bastar district.
Notably, the Union Steel and Mines Ministry has plans of doubling installed capacity of NMDC ltd’s upcoming 3 MTPA integrated steel plant coming up at Nagarnar in due course once the plant is commissioned.
The company is expecting commercial production of its 3 MTPA capacity steel plant in Chhattisgarh to commence by the middle of 2017. The plant is expected to be ready by December 2016 and trial of same will start by December 2016 itself, officials stated. In order to increase the domestic capacity of steel production, a concept of Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) has been introduced, officials stated.
Two MoUs have already been signed by the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand for setting up Greenfield steel plants with initial capacity of 3 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) each to be later enhanced to 6 MTPA. More than Rs70,000 crore will be invested for setting up of these steel plants.
NMDC has also planned to generate about 70 MW of captive power using gases from steel making processes in the upcoming 3 MTPA Nagarnar steel plant. The power would be generated from gases released from blast furnace, coke oven and ‘lD gases’.
The total power requirement of the steel plant would be around 420 MW in which the mines, pellet plant and the slurry pumping system would require around 120 MW of power, officials stated.
The remaining 350 MW power would be conventional in nature which would be fulfilled by the captive power plant and the Chhattisgarh State Power Distribution Company ltd (CSPDCl).
Notably, the electrification work for movement of trains have begun at the Railway siding site coming up at NMDC ltd’s proposed 3.0 MTPA Integrated Steel Plant (ISP) at Nagarnar.