India’s biggest iron ore miner NMDC sees no scope for further reduction of its ore prices when it revises the rates for April, even as globally the ore prices tumbled to a six-year low this week.

If anything, the miner feels that domestic ore prices will only firm up from the next month, signalling that it may not be able to accommodate the demand of the steel industry for further reduction in prices anymore.

For the current month, the miner had slashed its rates by 11-13 per cent, reducing the prices by Rs 300 per tonne for lumps and Rs 500 per tonne for fines to Rs 3,250 and Rs 2,460 a tonne respectively, in tune with the plunge in the global prices of the ore and frail domestic demand.

Last month too, the miner had bowed to the pressures from the steel industry, cutting the rates by Rs 450 and Rs 300 a tonne for lumps and fines respectively.

Apart from the steady fall in global prices of the ore in the last six months, the tepid demand of this raw material from the domestic steel industry, which is saddled with relatively higher inventory levels, had prompted NMDC to cut prices in December, February and March.

Narendra Kothari, NMDC chairman and managing director, did not think that there would be another round of price cut next month, as demand is likely to rise in the coming months. “As things stand today, the (ore) prices could only firm up from April,” he told Business Line.

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