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Mineral Enterprises to expand business

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE SEPT. 27. Mineral Enterprises Ltd., the Bangalore based iron ore exporter, is in talks with two foreign companies to sell a total of 24 per cent of its equity, to expand business.

The Rs. 60 crore group is expected to sell the entire 24 per cent to either one or both the companies, Basant Poddar, Managing Director said here on Friday. The U.S. based Cargill Exports and Japanese Kanematsu Corporation are the firms that have expressed interest in taking a stake.

On Friday, MEL exported for the first time, 65,000 tonnes of iron ore from the New Mangalore Port facility, so far a virtual monopoly of Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd. The ore will be picked up by Kanematsu on behalf of a Chinese steel maker, Bow Steel. New Mangalore Port will build a deep water berth in two years, on an agreement that MEL will supply about seven lakh tonnes of ore per annum. The volume would go upto 1.5 million tonnes once the broad gauge conversion of a railway track from Sakleshpur in Hassan district to Mangalore was complete, company officials said. As per the agreement, MEL will get $17.5 a tonne (freight on board) for the first shipment and for the subsequent shipments, it will get $22.5 a tonne. MEL had mining concessions in Tumkur and Chitradurga districts, and a manganese mining lease in Andhra Pradesh, the officials said.

Mineral Enterprises is a major supplier to Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Company, Kudremukh and various sponge iron producers.

In the overseas market, it sells iron ore to the U.K. based Derby, Overseas Metal Corporation of the U.S., Sumitomo Metal Industries, Nakayama Steels and Kanematsu Corporation of Japan.

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