PTI reported that Rashtriya Ispat Nigam has urged steel ministry to impress upon NMDC to bring down prices of iron ore.

RINL has said in a monthly report to the steel ministry that “While we recorded a reasonable level of profit in Q1 of this fiscal, our bottom line is severely affected in Q2 due to sharp increase in the price of iron ore.”

RINL said that “The impact (due to hike in iron ore prices) is about INR 15 to 20 crore a month depending on the grade of supply of iron ore fines, lump, CLO and DRCLO. The increase in the price of DRCLO is 13 per cent due to which there will be hardly any margin for RINL considering the sharp decline in steel prices.”

It added that “The prices of DRCLO are 52% higher than lump with not much benefit in its usage vis a vis lump. As we have no other option, we have already requested NMDC to stop the supply of DRCLO.”

RINL said it was making all efforts to improve the bottomline through improvement in techno-economic parameters and cost reduction measures to nullify the impact of decline in market prices of steel.

RINL had recorded around INR 3,000 crore turnover in the first quarter of the current fiscal, registering a growth of 16% over the same quarter last fiscal. However, it did not divulge the amount of net profit for the quarter.

NMDC had increased the contract price of iron ore by 8% to 13% for the July to September quarter. During the immediate previous quarter, it had hiked iron ore prices by 8 to 10% as well.

Source - PTI

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