Iron ore prices are more or less plateaued and there isn’t much scope for further increase, said Sumit Deb, CMD of NMDC on Tuesday. Deb’s comments are coming days after the Union roads and highways minister Nitin Gadkari talked about the potential steel price hike.

“We do believe that prices have more or less stabilised and there is not much scope of further increase,” Deb told CNBC-TV18.

“Steel prices have been moving up. We also have been looking at the markets, the way the international markets have been behaving and the domestic markets too we are seeing prices going up in Odisha. So we have been following the trend in the market and that is how our prices have increased in line with the market,” he said.

The company has not heard from Nitin Gadkari on the iron ore prices, he said.

In terms of comparison of NMDC’s iron ore prices to international prices, he said, “Our prices are always on a discount – almost to the extent of 30-40 percent discount on the landed cost of imported ore. We being in Chhattisgarh, our prices are much more competitive in terms of Odisha ore.”

Though the Karnataka government has given permission to start the Donimalai plant, there are some details that are yet to be worked out.

“It will take us some more time to ramp up to 100 percent capacity in Karnataka,” he mentioned.

The company intends to do around 40 million tonne of sales in FY22.

Fonte: CNBC TV18