MOIL production dips 2.4% during Apr-Nov

Company had produced 6.87 lakh tonne manganese ore during April- November period of the 2012-13 fiscal

Hit hard by rains, the output of state-run manganese ore producer MOIL has dipped by 2.44% to 6.7 lakh tonne in the first eight months of the current fiscal, 2013-14.

"...The monsoon during 2013 had set in earlier than the normal anticipated date and this region had witnessed unprecedented and incessant heavy rains right from June until first week of October," a MOIL official said.

The company, based out of Nagpur in Maharashtra, had produced 6.87 lakh tonne manganese ore during April- November period of the 2012-13 fiscal.

The official added: "The decline has caused inundation in opencast workings as well as heavy seepage of water in underground workings severely hampering the normal mining operations.

"Further, due to flooding, the road dispatches were also adversely affected resulting into less quantities of despatch."

He said that considering the severity of the situation, shortfall in production and dispatches during the period up to November 2013 as compared to the same period in the previous year was only marginal.

"We shall be made up the shortfall in the coming months," he said.

MOIL's sales also fell by 7.34% during the period to 6.62 lakh tonne, compared to 7.14 lakh tonne a year ago.

The sale of ferro manganese during the April-November period went up to 6,960 tonne as compared to 6,121 tonne in the year-ago period, reflecting an increase of 13.71%.

MOIL operates 10 mines - 6 located in Nagpur and Bhandara districts of Maharashtra and 4 in Balaghat of Madhya Pradesh. All these mines are about a century old.