News and Events

As uncertainty continues over resumption of the mining operations in Karnataka causing suffering and losses for steel makers, industry analysts feel that the iron ore miners and steel makers may eventually go for pellet making to reap benefits through exports. There are a number of analysts who think if the last decade saw the mushroomed growth of sponge iron in India this decade will notice growth of pellet plants and beneficiation plants to utilize low grade iron ore with Fe content of less than 55% Ms Susmita Dasgupta of the Economic Research Unit of Joint Plant Committee said that “Pellets make economic sense because blast furnaces can now utilize nearly 70 to 80% of their burden in the form of sinter and pellets. Pellets were initially only used in sponge iron and other solid iron processes, but their graduation to molten iron making has made pellets into an attractive proposition. If pellets are made out of ultra-fines of good quality ore, there is much more sense. If not, then not only the process becomes very costly but causes enormous emissions. Pellets can also be made out of iron ore beneficiation plants where ferrous fines can be retrieved from crusher waste by magnetic separators.” Mr Sachin Sehgal director of OreTeam said that “Given the present scenario of raw materials in the country, beneficiation (of iron ore) and pelletization is the way ahead and will have a major role to achieve the 200 million tonne dream production/capacity by 2020. Unless direct steel making techniques flood into the market in this time frame, pellets can’t be replaced.” Mr Mukherjee editor of Steel and Metallurgy said that “Since 70% of our iron ore are fines and 30% are lump ores, efforts are needed to utilize the fines and convert the same into pellets to prevent the colossal loss to the national resources. However, the technologies offered by West Europe are for plants over and above a million tonne. For smaller players they generally choose the Chinese technology, which is still not proven. The ministry of steel is keen on developing indigenous technology for pellet making, which is a positive sign.”