KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - The present level of iron-ore reserves in India was unlikely to be sufficient to meet projected demand by 2019/20, the Indian mineral resource regulator, the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) has reported.
According to the revised National Steel Policy, India’s steel production was forecast at 180-million tons a year, of which 60% would be accounted for through the blast furnace route, 33% through direct reduced iron (DRI) production and the balance through other processes. To meet such production levels the run-of-mine (ROM) iron-ore requirement would be 500-million tons a year against current production levels of 220-million tons a year.
In a report titled 'Indian Iron and Steel: Vision 2020', IBM said that as managers of raw materials, it was the regulator’s responsibility to see that the required input was comprehensively met in terms of quality and quantity.
“This brings us face to face with issues of conservation and beneficiation followed by aggloremation of beneficiated fines,” the report read.
Almost all the major iron-ore belts in India, including Orissa, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Maharasthra, Goa and Karnataka, were being exploited for high-grade ore at a cut off of around 60% iron and several have been exploited for high- and medium-grade ores over the last six decades.
While the country has huge potential in low-grade ores in these regions, exploration efforts have been highly inadequate.
“It is obligatory on part of the mining industry to exploit low-grade resources which are currently considered as waste,” the report said.
Apart from this, significant quantities of slime, about 25% of ROM during wet processing of ore, were generated. These slimes were dumped in tailing ponds leading to huge accumulations over the years. NMDC Limited, the country’s largest iron-ore miner has 20-million tons of accumulated slime alone, carrying environmental hazards.
It was necessary to find a use for these slimes and treat it as a nonrenewable resource rather than waste. This would be the new challenge for the mining industry, the report said.
It noted that with all existing and future steel capacity coming through integrated steel plants (ISP) and coal-based DRI units, the demand for pellets would be very high and difficult to meet. Assuming that all ISP’s make use of a minimum of 15% pellets for their blast furnaces, the projected steel production level would require 25-million tons a year of pellets.
Furthermore, if coal-based DRI units use 50% pellets as a replacement for high-grade ore the demand would be an additional 25-million tons a year.
Against this backdrop, the IBM has proposed a series of short- and long-term measures for sustainable development of the iron-ore sector that would at the same time augment supplies to the iron and steel industry.
The short-term measures include the immediate use of available stacked fines in noncaptive sectors and slimes impounded in tailing ponds of iron-ore washing plants and stacked marginal grade ores through deployment of appropriate beneficiation technology.
The regulator has suggested consideration of the concept of total beneficiation of ROM at the cut off of 45% iron to be introduced for optimal use of resources.
Augmenting the sintering plant capacities of ISP’s, increasing pelletization capacity in noncaptive sectors, creating pelletization capacities at all ISPs, increasing the use of pellets at DRI units, and gradual discountinuation of the use of high-grade ore by these units were other short-term measures suggested by IBM.
The long-term measures suggested were converting existing hematite resources into reserves by detailed exploration followed by feasibility, exploring the possibility of the persistence of hematite at depths beyond 50 m or from existing pit bottoms of existing mines, as well as evolving suitable technology for use in goethite-rich ore in iron making.
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