NMDC to up iron ore production by 8 million tonne.

Despite the ongoing pricing pressures, state-owned iron ore miner NMDC Limited is planning to step up its iron ore production by adding another five to eight million tonne in the current financial year in the hope of better price realisations.

'We propose to increase our production to 35-38 million tonne from 30.44 million tonne last year. We expect to see a demand growth from the steel sector. Coupled with certain anti-dumping duties and taxes expected to be levied by the government, we hope the iron ore prices to increase to around $ 60-$70 per tonne going forward,” Narendra Kothari, chairman cum managing director of NMDC, said.

The company's performance, both on physical and financial fronts during the last financial year, remained flat compared to the previous year, particularly by the poor show in the fourth quarter ending March 2015, partly owing to lower prices.

The company has reported a 31.35 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 1,347 crore for the quarter under review, as compared with Rs 1,962 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Revenues declined 27.16 per cent to Rs 2,829 core, from Rs 3,884 core in the year ago period.

While the domestic iron ore prices had recovered a bit to a level of around $ 60 per tonne from under $ 50 in the recent months, still there was almost a 50 per cent price erosion in the global iron ore prices compared to $114 a tonne in April 2014, and this has impacted the earnings of the company, according to Kothari.

BS