Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Steel emerged as the highest successful bidder for the Ganua iron ore block in Sundargarh district of Odisha by committing to pay 132 percent of the sale value of the ore to the state government after beating its competitors KJS Ahluwalia, Rungta Mines Ltd, Shyam Steel Industries Ltd, and Amalgam Steel & Power Ltd. The Ganua iron ore block has an estimated ore reserve of 118.92 million tonnes. The bagging o Ganua mine gives JSW steel an assured linkage of over 1,100 MT iron ore reserves in Odisha to meet its future needs in the state and elsewhere.
The steel giant had previously won the largest iron ore block, the Nuagaon mine having an estimated reserve of around 790 million tonnes after bagging the Narayanposhi iron block having 190 million tonnes reserve, beating players like ArcelorMittal, Vedanta, Adani group etc.
Securing iron ore linkage was extremely crucial as the company looks to invest 53,000 crores for setting up a greenfield steel plant of 12MTPA in Odisha.
Earlier on December 6, 2019, the Odisha government released notices inviting tender (NIT) for auction of 20 iron ore and manganese blocks; out of which 15 mines being auctioned predominantly have iron ore, three have both iron ore and manganese and the rest are primarily manganese reserves. The 18 iron ore mines account for 1,600 million tonnes of reserve, with 33 percent or five mines being kept reserved for captive usage.
