MNGALURU: High grade Brazilian iron ore fines processed by KIOCL Ltd at its pellet plant here is all set to be shipped to Iran. With the Islamic Republic presenting a market of around 10 million tonnes of high grade pellets (with iron content of above 66%) they prefer, KIOCL Ltd under PM Narendra Modi’s flagship scheme Make In India made a small yet affirmative beginning by selling 65,000 metric tonnes of pellet shipment worth Rs 40 crore to that nation.
Describing the event as historic, Malay Chatterjee, chairman and managing director of KIOCL Ltd told reporters on Saturday that the company’s pellet plant at Panambur near here that has a capacity to produce 3.5 million tonnes of iron ore pellets per annum is perfectly capable of handling high grade iron ore fines. “This venture will help the company recover the fixed and variable cost that it incurs on keeping the pellet operational and meeting costs,” Malay noted.
The process of loading the pellets on to M V Aries captained by Mohsen Sheikhi got underway at KIOCL’s dedicated berth number 8 in the presence of P C Parida, chairman, NMPT, Suresh P Shirwadkar, deputy chairman, Anil Malhotra, managing director, TUF group, D Chatterjee, executive director, TUF group and other dignitaries. The process of loading the pellets is expected to take up to 36-hours after which M V Aries will sail out to Bandar Abbas port.
Malay said the short distance between New Mangalore Port on the West Coast and Bandar Abbas makes the venture of exporting pellets all the more feasible. With Brazil and Chile the only nations that produce high grade iron ore, the Latin American country was a natural choice to source the mineral from for converting it in to pellets and exporting it to Iran, Malay said adding KIOCL Ltd will source the mineral from Brazil based on demand from Iran or other markets.
