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The Steel Ministry has asked its undertakings, SAIL and NMDC, to explore mineral assets abroad to help secure long-term raw material requirements and support input costs, an official said. Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) is India's largest public sector steel-making entity, and NMDC is the country's leading iron ore player. On a query on whether steel PSUs, especially SAIL and NMDC, have been asked to look for mining assets abroad, the senior ministry official replied in the affirmative. The move will help secure future requirements and reduce cost, the official said without sharing further details. Iron ore and coking coal are two basic raw materials needed to produce steel, besides limestone and pulverised coal injection (PCI Coal), among others. While iron ore is available in abundance in the country, Indian steel makers, including SAIL, remain heavily dependent on imports for 85-90 per cent of their coking coal requirements from countries such as Australia and Mozambique.
NMDC is working on strategies to achieve the 60 MT iron ore production mark this fiscal to meet growing demand from domestic steelmakers for the key raw material, its Chairman Amitava Mukherjee said. Aligned with the National Steel Policy 2017, which targets an installed domestic steelmaking capacity of 300 MT by 2030-31, NMDC, India's largest iron ore producer, aims to scale its output to 100 MT during the period. "Having crossed the 50 MT milestone in FY2026. NMDC is now aggressively executing a production ramp-up plan to reach 60 MTPA from existing iron ore mines, complemented by NMDC-CMDC Limited (NCL) joint venture assets this fiscal, which would be a rise of around 20 per cent year-on-year," the top company official said in an interaction. Mukherjee shared that the company has already applied for environmental clearances (ECs) for some deposits with the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. On a question related to the 100 MT production goal, Mukherjee sai
State-owned NMDC will start the commercial production of thermal coal by October-December period and looks to sell around 1 MT of the dry fuel within FY27, said Amitava Mukherjee, Chairman of India's largest iron ore mining player. Under the Ministry of Steel, Hyderabad-based NMDC alone caters to the country's 20 per cent need of iron ore -- a key raw material needed to produce steel. In an interview to PTI, Mukherjee said the company has drawn a road map up to 2030 to diversify its mining operations to support the government's vision of Viksit Bharat. "Right now, we are 99.9 per cent an iron ore company. We aim to help the growing industries in the country with maximum of their mineral needs," the chairman said, adding that this year the company will begin the commercial mining of thermal coal and targets to sell a maximum of 1 MT of the commodity to potential buyers. "We have reached the coal seam (of Tokisud North coal mine), and the production will start by next quarter," the .
