Subdued demand and incessant rain affected the sale of iron ore by state-run miner NMDC.
Iron ore sales of the company declined to 5.9 million tonne (mn t) in the quarter ending September 2012 compared to 7.6 mn t in the year-ago period.
Similarly, in the December 2012 quarter, the firm witnessed decline in ore sales to 5.3 mn t from 6.4 mn t during the same period last year.
Sales declined also because of the premium pricing followed by the firm. The governmentÂ’s offer for sale (OFS) of part of its stake in the company during December added to the problems for its shares.
According to analysts, the company might end 2012-13 with production volumes at 26 mn t, a decline of 4.8 per cent over the 27.5 mn t in 2011-12, this is likely to improve in 2013-14, driven by completion of capacity expansions and fine-tuning of pricing policy.
The company plans to raise its annual mining capacity from the current 32 mn t to 48 mn t over the next two years. While some capacity expansions had seen delay during 2012-13, these are likely to get completed in 2013-14.
Production in Karnataka may get a boost, from the expansions at the Kumaraswamy mines. These would reach seven mt capacity by November, from the current 2 mn t.
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