NMDC is planning a capital expenditure of Rs 3,750 crore and iron ore output of 44 million tonne during FY22, up from 35 million tonne achieved during the COVID-19 hit 2020-2021.
NMDC is drawing up a big capex plan so that it can achieve a target of 100 million tpa of iron ore output within four-five years.
The company is setting up a forward integration Nagarnar iron and steel plant in Chhattisgarh and targeting the commissioning of the plant in late Q3/FY22 or early Q4/FY22. Simultaneously, it is also planning to start the coke oven unit.
NMDC has planned a capex of Rs 3,750 crore in FY22 and a large chunk of it, Rs 2,150 crore, is for the three million tpa Nagarnar steel plant and the rest, Rs 1,600 crore for other projects including the slurry pipeline (Rs 250 crore to Rs 300 crore) and Rs 200 crore for the third trading plant at Kirandul with 12 million tpa.
The slurry pipeline is supposed to come up by Q3/2023. It has already awarded Rs 1,000 crore contract to Larsen & Toubro (L&T) for laying of the pipeline. The work is underway.
The NMDC management is in the process of demerger of the steel business into a new company. Once it is demerged, it will have a mirror shareholding of NMDC where the government of India would own 60.38 percent of the shares of the new steel company. Thereafter the sales of those shares are within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance or DIPAM.
The revised cost estimate for the steel plant is Rs 22,000 crore. It has already spent around Rs 18,700 crore so anything between Rs 2,500 crore to Rs 3,000 crore is still left over.
The Donimalai pellet plant will start contributing to the top line and bottom line from Q4/FY22.
The company expects that the coal mines will start hopefully from Q3 or Q4/FY22, but the sale could take a couple of more quarters.