National Mineral Policy 2006 - Department of Mines

BENEFITS OF LARGE-SCALE STAND ALONE MINING7.35 It is claimed by the mining companies that globally mining is an independent industryand iron ore mining is no different. The idea of making iron ore mining a handmaiden oflocal steel makers as a matter of policy is unique to India. By doing this, the country deprivesitself of a number of optimalities that stand alone mining brings, such as investment inmining and exploration leading to new finds, efficiency, and high technology in both miningand beneficiation, mining (linking) infrastructure because of the need to transfer the producefrom mine to market, and environment management in the mining sector as a specialisedactivity. The steel industry, on the other hand, maintains that captive mining is a globallyrising trend and is needed to promote competitiveness.7.36 While there was agreement in the Committee on the benefits of large-scale standalone mining, it was pointed out that the large-scale captive miners also could deliver manyof these benefits. As far as detailed exploration is concerned, there is not much to choosebetween captive miners and India’s nine large-scale (those with production more than 3million tonnes per annum) stand alone miners. What is true of prospecting is also true tosome extent of mining efficiency, infrastructure creation, and environment management. Inthis context, it is necessary to distinguish stand alone mining in the large-scale sector fromthe SME sector. While the latter is found to be lacking in all these aspects it cannot be saidthat iron ore mining by SAIL and Tata Steel is less efficient or technically inferior than ironore mining by the nine large stand alone miners in India. India’s large stand alone and captiveminers are, however, not in the same league as the mining majors of the world and by worldstandards a mining company with a production of 3 million tonnes of iron ore is not bigenough to be described as a mining major. Mining majors in all parts of the world areinvolved in prospecting on a large scale, deploy the latest technology, and create mininginfrastructure on a massive scale. They are also in the forefront of setting and followingsustainable development standards for mining. The issue is, therefore, to decide whethermining majors should be encouraged to enter the Indian iron ore sector. Some of theadvantages that could result from this are discussed below.7.37 Modern resource companies use the latest ‘state of the art’ technologies in explorationand mining. Billiton’s Falcon airborne gravity gradiometer (developed in collaboration withLockheed Martin), with its specially developed system software, has made the discovery ofnew iron ore deposits in both greenfield and mature settings possible. It is claimed that thistechnology can delineate major undiscovered high grade iron ore deposits to a depth of 90155