Mining To Be Tata Steels Second Line Of Business

Private sector steel major Tata Iron and Steel Co Ltd (Tata Steel) will develop mining as a second line of business after steel, which currently constitutes upto 80 per cent of the company's business. The company is looking at becoming a major exporter of mining technology and will leverage its extensive iron ore, coal and chrome deposits for the purpose and is also currently prospecting titanium mineral as a future addition to its portfolio.

Tata Steel managing director Jamshed J Irani said: "We already possess considerable expertise in mining coal, iron ore and chrome. Though chrome mining has been an expensive proposition so far due to being a power-intensive operation , a cost-effective technology has now been developed. Titanium, we see as the metal of the future, very much as steel was at one time. Mining or rather mining expertise, is therefore going to be a very significant part of Tata Steel's business in the future, after steel." About 80 per cent of the company's present turnover, which stood at Rs 6890.87 crore last fiscal, comes from steel but Irani sees mining emerge as major contributor in a few years.

 

According to senior company officials, Tata Steel's Calcutta-based ferro alloys and minerals division (FAMD) is being groomed to take on the additional responsibility of developing the mining business as commercially viable area of activity. The FAMD would operate as an independent profit centre. At present, the division's principal activity is excavation and procurements of raw materials like coal and iron ore for Tata Steel's steel business.

While titanium mineral is presently being described as `future business', the company has already kicked off the process of mapping and prospecting for deposits. The biggest titanium deposits in India are in the southern states, Andhra Pradesh being a principal one.

There are also plans for research tie-ups to facilitate development of mining expertise in the area and the market for this would primarily be overseas. "We plan to become significant players in mining expertise overseas and titanium mining would also become part of that plan," said Irani.

The company at present does open-cast mining of iron ore, manganese ore, chrome ore, ferro chrome and dolomite, most deposits of which are in the eastern part of the country. Its collieries in Jharia and West Bokaro yield 1.4 million tonne and 3.9 million tonne of raw coal respectively per annum.