India's largest steel producer Steel Authority of India is hoping to emerge, over the next 18 months.

Mr CS Verma CMD of SAIL in an interview with ET said that "If it can get clearances and approvals for all its captive mines, SAIL could surpass the iron ore production capacities of National Mineral Development Corporation."

Mr Verma has recently taken over temporary charge of NMDC. The ramping up of iron ore mines is critical to SAIL's expansion to 24 million tonne of steel that has suffered a considerable delay.

Q - What made you accept the post of CMD at NMDC? Aren't your hands already full with many responsibilities?

A - The NMDC offer was assigned to me and I could not deny any responsibility at a senior level. There is a lot of synergy between the operations of NMDC and SAIL. We at SAIL are operating mines similar to iron ore mines being operated by NMDC.

So, I don't see any difficulty in overseeing both the operations. I just need to devote more time because of additional responsibilities . NMDC is producing around 28 million tonne of iron ore. In SAIL, we are also producing iron ore, which is roughly around 25 million tonne.

And in the next one and a half years, our iron ore production is going to be around 42 million tonne when our steel making capacity will go up to a level of 24 million tonne. The iron ore production of NMDC will reach to around 40million tonne over the next three years.

Today, we at SAIL have iron ore reserves of 4 billion tonne. Of the country's proved iron ore deposits, nearly 20% is with our company.

Q - What is the status of ICVL after some of its partners announced to pull out of the venture?

A - One of the partners of NTPC said that they want to withdraw from ICVL since it is meant for acquiring coking coal assets and NTPC doesn't have any interest in coking coal as its interest lies in thermal coal. Initial hiccups happen in any new company.

Source - Economic Times

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