1st phase of NMDC's 400 km slurry pipeline to be over by 2018

State-owned miner NMDC today said first phase of the 400 km slurry pipeline to carry iron ore from its Bailadila mines to Vizag will be completed by 2018.
The slurry pipeline, which will be built at a cost of about Rs 9,000 crore, will be used to transport iron ore fines from NMDC's Bailadila mine in Chhattisgarh to Vizag in Andhra Pradesh, where RINL has its steel-making facility.
"The 400 km slurry pipeline from Bailadila to Vizag will be built at an expense of about Rs 9,000 crore and first phase of 100 km connecting Bailadila to Jagdalpur will be completed by 2018. The second phase will be thereafter in a year or two," NMDC CMD Narendra Kothari told reporters here.

NMDC has been operating four mines in Bailadila sector of Dantewada district and cumulatively they produced 5.7 million tonnes (MT) iron ore in first quarter out of its total 7.8 MT production during the April-June period of the 2014-15.
NMDC is building the slurry pipeline for transporting pellets from Bailadila to Vizag via Jagdalpur with provision of partial offtake at Nagarnar.
Iron ore offtake in the current fiscal is expected at 38 million tonnes, Kothari added.