NMDC starts talks to revive joint venture with Rio Tinto

State-run iron ore miner NMDC has started a fresh round of negotiations with global mining giant Rio Tinto to revive an equal joint venture that was mutually scrapped almost a year ago.

A steel ministry official said the Hyderabad-based miner has already discussed the prospect of reviving the venture a couple of times with the Anglo-Australian miner.

However, he added that talks are still at a preliminary stage and have not taken a concrete shape so far.

“Efforts are on, on behalf of NMDC, to renew the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Rio Tinto. Preliminary discussions have been held a couple of times,” the official told PTI.

NMDC and Rio Tinto had entered into a 50:50 joint venture agreement in August 18, 2008, to look at mutually advantageous potential investment opportunities, primarily for iron ore and other minerals both within and outside of India.

The MoU was initially for a period of two years with the option of extending it for one more year. However, it had lapsed in August 2011, as the three—year old venture, meant for scouting mining resources in different parts of the world including in India, did not bear any fruit.

If the revived talks take a concrete shape, the official said, NMDC might get a chance to enter into Rio Tinto’s home turf in Australia and contribute to meeting the growing need of the raw material in India.

The company’s efforts to acquire assets abroad on its own recently received a set back as mining firm Minemakers dropped it as its potential joint venture partner for developing Wonarah rock phosphate reserves in Australia, blaming NMDC’s inability to make timely decisions.

NMDC is India’s largest iron ore producer. It produced 27 million tonnes of the steel-making raw material in 2011-12. It targets to produce over 30 million tonne in the current fiscal by enhancing production from existing mines in Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.

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