India's Telangana Province Scouts Iron Ore Reserves to Secure Steel Mill

Mining Weekly reported that the Indian province of Telangana is seeking iron ore reserves within its borders to ensure a 3 million tonnes per year steel mill can be built there.

As quoted in the market news:

The province has identified 240 km2 and handed it over to the Geological Survey of India (GSI) for survey and assessment of possible recoverable iron-ore reserves.

However, fearing that possible reserves within Telangana might not be sufficient to ensure raw material security to any proposed steel mill, the provincial government was also scouting for reserves in the neighbouring provinces of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand with an eye to joint venture with these provincial governments.

“As a newly created province, it is necessary to step up industrialisation of Telangana and the provincial government is convinced that a greenfield steel mill would not only have an economic multiplier impact on the region but also catalyse the province into a manufacturing hub,” a senior government official said.

At the heart of the rush for raw material was a tentative proposal for setting up a three-million-tonne-a-year steel mill by government-owned and operated Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL).

Click here to read the full Mining Weekly report.