HYDERABAD: The National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), which has entered into diamond jubilee year, is showing no signs of slowing down. The state-owned Navratna company is on a robust expansion mode as it eyes mining opportunities in Australia, Vietnam, Tanzania and others. It is also focusing on exploring mining opportunities in tungsten, gold and other metals.
The firm achieved a record iron ore production of 34 million tonnes and sales of 35.6 million tonnes in FY17, according to N Baijendra Kumar, chairman and managing director of NMDC. “We are confident of continuing growth at the same pace and we aim to achieve a production capacity of 67 million tonnes by 2022. Besides focusing on iron ore, we are also exploring opportunities in tungsten mining and gold exploration,” Kumar said while announcing the company’s diamond jubilee celebrations here on Wednesday.
He added that the capex of Rs 3,500 crore will be invested for various expansion works this financial year, which will include investment going into setting up of a steel plant in Chhattisgarh.
As part of its expansion plans, NMDC will enter into an MoU with Vietnam-based Masan Resources for a possible acquisition of a minority stake in tungsten mine in the southeast Asian nation.
“We have got clearance from the steel ministry for the MoU. We are going to have an MoU with Masan Resources soon. After the due diligence is done, we will take a call on whether to invest in the mine and if yes, by how much. We have a joint venture partnership with Midhani. DMRL will be supporting in the form of funding after the due diligence,” said P K Satpathy, director (production) at NMDC.
Masan operates a mine that produces some 6,000 tonnes of ammonium para tungstate per annum. Currently, India imports tungsten due to higher production cost.
NMDC and Midhani signed an MoU in October last year to explore suitable tungsten assets in India and abroad for investment as well as development of technologies.