Forget iron ore in India, theres loads of low grade garbage and the cost of beneficiating it isn't worth the capital expenditure and production costs to do it. Cheaper to import iron ore from Australia. I've been saying that for a long time and I've been proven correct as Australian iron ore quantities being imported into India are increasing due to the cheaper cost.
IOR should look at getting manganese ore deposits, if you want to upgrade then upgrading Mn ore is the way to go. At least IOR would make money. India has a lot of low grade manganese ore deposits, but rely mostly on imports from South Africa.
This graph whilst not the latest it shows the increase in manganese ore imports into India.
View attachment 1389441There is money to be made with manganese ore, just look at companies like JMS or OMH, the profit margins are considerably higher, South African ore is currently US$6.09/dmtu or US$225/tonne.
India already realises the importance of manganese ore in the future as every tonne of steel produced requires Mn ore, currently India is a large producer of ferro alloys FeMn and SiMn but its mostly from imported Mn ore. Whilst the cost of imported Mn ore is expensive then most Indian producers are marginal at best. The Mn ore miners are the ones making money like the two companies I mentioned above.
Maybe the new CEO has a few brains and realises that beneficiating iron ore is just a waste of time, the capital costs, production costs against the sales price just won't hack it.
To make money from iron ore you need huge volumes ie millions of tonnes annuall
https://ibm.gov.in/writereaddata/files/11052014103838Manganese_Ore_Vision_2020_and_Beyond.pdfy, with Mn ore its possible to make $$$million from only 400,000 tonnes annually.
