NMDC Commissions Rs 5,427 Crore Bastar Iron Ore Project

NMDC Ltd, the state-owned miner working under the Ministry of Steel, has put into operation a 2 MTPA pellet plant at Nagarnar in Chhattisgarh. The plant completes an integrated venture worth Rs 5,427 crore that ties the company mining work at Bacheli to its steel plant at Nagarnar.

Three parts of one venture

• A newly built ore beneficiation unit at Bacheli
• A slurry pipeline rated at 15 MTPA
• The 2 MTPA pellet plant at Nagarnar

The pipeline stretches 135 km and carries concentrate from Bacheli across to Nagarnar. That material earlier travelled mainly by truck, so the line hands the miner a second route for evacuation and trims its dependence on highways and on the railways alike. On its way the pipeline crosses 61 villages spread across the Bastar and Dantewada districts.

Project at a glance

How the first output was watched

Rough weather stopped the leadership from reaching the site, so the maiden run of the pellet plant was followed live from the NMDC headquarters by Chairman and Managing Director Amitava Mukherjee along with senior officials. He described the occasion as a moment of deep pride for everyone in the organisation and said the work had been far from easy to execute.

Why pellets matter

The new facilities let the company turn fines and slimes, the finer leftovers thrown up at its Bailadila mines, first into concentrate and then into pellets fit for steelmaking. The pellet unit runs on Straight Grate Induration technology. Pellets add a value-added item to the product list and widen the reach of NMDC along the iron ore chain, from extraction and beneficiation through slurry transport to pellet output.

The larger plan

This commissioning forms one step in a wider expansion and diversification strategy. Over the longer term the miner is working towards an iron ore production capacity of 100 million tonnes. Bringing more of the fines and slimes from Bailadila into use supports that goal, because material once treated as waste now feeds a saleable product.