Pile-up of iron ore fines hit mining operations

The iron-ore mines in Karnataka, which are waiting for the Karnataka High Court to pronounce the verdict on their appeal for withdrawal of export ban imposed by the state government in July this year, are burdened with the piling up of huge quantities of the low-grade iron ore fines.

Mines in the ore-rich mining belt of Bellary-Hospet-Sandur, Chitradurga and Tumkur are stuck with huge piles amounting to around 4 million tonnes of fines. Until these are evacuated, the miners cannot even produce fresh lumps. The shortage of lumps, on the other hand, has affected the operations of domestic steel mills in the state.

To produce one tonne of iron ore lumps, the mines produce 3-4 tonnes of iron ore fines. Domestic steel mills consume iron ore lumps produced by the mines in the state, while the fines are exported, mainly to China. Most mines in the state are at present working at 40 per cent of their capacity as they have no place to dump iron ore fines.

“All mines in Chitradurga and Tumkur belt produce only low-grade fines. The mines have now completely halted mining activities. The fines piled up at these mines are an environmental hazard as it is difficult to stop them from being blown about in the atmosphere,” said Basant Poddar, managing director, Mineral Enterprises Limited.

The mining companies have taken measures like covering the open area with tarpaulin sheets and sprayed organic chemicals to avoid fines getting blown away. “These are only temporary measures and do not work for a long time. We need to dispose off the fines at the earliest in the interest of the environment and the industry,” Poddar said.

Apart from this, a lot of investment made by mining companies is going waste as they are unable to make use of it, he said. Mines in Karnataka have invested around ' 2,000 crore on setting up railway sidings, installation of cranes to lift the commodity at ports in Mangalore and Goa in the last two to three years, he said.

The problem is not just limited to mining companies. Even steel mills in Karnataka are in trouble as supply of raw material has come down by less than 50 per cent in the last two months. Companies like Jindal Steel, Kirloskar Ferro Alloys, Kalyani Steels, Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Ltd, a unit of SAIL, have their presence in Karnataka.

Jindal Steel, which runs its steel plant at Toranagallu in Bellary district, had recently approached the Karnataka department of mines and geology to relax the restriction on transportation of iron ore. At present, the department has limited transportation of iron ore to 10,000 tonnes on alternate days by the mining companies. On average, Jindal consumes 40,000 tonnes of iron ore per day and presently its supplies have fallen drastically, the industry sources said.