“Chiria is important, especially in the long term, considering our expansion plans across all plants and reserves left in our other existing mines. However, I am not sure if the mechanised mines in Chiria will start operations by 2010. We are making arrangements to ensure we do not miss the target,” SAIL GM, Raw Material Division Gua and Manoharpur mines P C Tibrewal said.

Allocating reserves from its mines in Gua would mean that they will get exhausted earlier than planned but SAIL is banking on getting the full reserves in Chiria so that production does not suffer till 2020. “Without Chiria, our long-term plan of achieving 60 mt steel production by 2020 will be under a cloud. Our reserves in Kiriburu and Meghatuburu will not last more than 10 years and we will have a problem after that,” Tibrewal said. “Even with Chiria our reserves will probably last only 34-35 years. Beyond that we dont know.”

SAIL plans to augment its hot metal production to 26.13 million tonne (MT) by 2010 and thereafter to 60 MT by 2020. For achieving the 2010 target, SAIL will need around 42 MT of iron ore, whereas for 60 MT the requirement is pegged at about 100 MT. For the next 50 years, SAIL has listed total iron ore requirement of over 3 billion tonne, which has, however been questioned by Jharkhand. At present, iron ore available from SAIL’s mines in Orissa and Jharkhand is approximately 26.33 MT. Of the 10 mining leases SAIL had in Chiria and Gua region, renewal of four is under dispute with the Jharkhand government and is pending in court. Production in the two blocks in Chiria has proven reserves of about 1,769 mt, is only around 1.2 MT which will be ramped up to 50 mt provided the leases are awarded.

(The writer was in Chiria at SAIL’s invitation)