KOLKATA | Jan 30, 2017: Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Ltd for "exploration and exploitation of Kukunoor iron ore mines" situated in West Godavari district.

The MoU was signed by DN Rao, Director (Operations), RINL and Ch Venkaiah Chowdary, vice chairman, APMDC on behalf of VSP and APMDC respectively. P Madhusudan, chairman and managing director of RINL handed over the MoU in presence of Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu during the Partnership Summit held at Visakhapatnam recently.

With expansion in steelmaking capacity, raw material security has emerged as RINL's top most priority. This is more so since unlike Steel Authority of India and some other steel majors, RINL does not have access to captive iron ore mines which makes its input costs higher.

It has thus been betting big on getting access to iron ore from the Kukunoor iron ore mines. Incidentally, with production capacity going up to 6.3 million tonne post expansion, RINL's iron ore requirement is estimated to go up to around 10 million tonne per annum.

(Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/)