The Economic Times reported that NMDC's E auction for iron ore lumps again found few takers on November 20th with less than 1 to 10 of what it put up for sale.
In half a dozen E auctions held recently, NMDC has found that almost 93% of iron ore lumps they've offered for bids found no takers.
NMDC has kept ore prices pegged at high rates, ignoring international price trends making it unviable for the state's steel makers. As a result, there were no takers for lump ore in the past few E auctions.
NMDC has refuted steel makers' contention on pricing, arguing that E auctions are conducted by a monitoring committee set up by the apex court and that it has reduced rates twice in the past 2 months.
Mr CS Verma acting CMD of NMDC said that "In October, we reduced our rates by 3% to 11% and in November, we reduced it by another 2% to 11%. We have to be on par with market conditions, and price our rates accordingly, which we do. Indeed, the November auctions have seen lower response but there are many E auctions that have completely surpassed our expectations."
But steel makers said price cuts are insignificant and hardly make a difference. Many steel makers have shut down operations while bigger players like Mukand and Kalyani Steel are operating at 40% capacities, whereas JSW Steel is operating at 70% and Kirloskar Ferrous at 50%.
