NHAI may shut down crawling GQ projects
Indian Express

Fed up with the delays dogging the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) — which was once its showpiece project — the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has decided to crack the whip on the contractors responsible for the slowdown.

At a recent NHAI board meeting, it was decided that all lingering GQ project stretches, which are not completed by June this year, will be closed and partial tolling would be allowed on completed sections.

“It has finally been decided that contracts due for completion by June, if not ready, will be terminated. The GQ project has been long delayed and we have earlier terminated contracts and re-awarded them as well to ensure its timely completion, but that did not speed up the process. Also, the ministry is working on a plan to allow partial tolling on these sections. Say, if of a 55-km GQ stretch, 50 is four-laned and 5 km remain pending, we will toll 50 km,” a senior official of the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways said.

Partial tolling is being considered in order to offset some of the loss of revenue. Currently, despite 80-90 per cent of the stretches complete in certain sections, the NHAI is unable to toll them due to pockets of delay.

As many as 15 project stretches, spread across some 210 km, have been delayed for long, creating uncomfortable, two-lane pockets across largely four-laned highways, and these now face termination.

Some 21 projects are in the red, which the NHAI’s latest monthly report lists as “contracts due for completion by this month, yet not completed”. All of these projects have already reported a “time overrun,” ranging from 13 to 60 months and their “anticipated completion” dates are all between March to June 2008.

“While there are some projects which were recently terminated and re-awarded and so, will drag on quite longer, pushing back 100 per cent completion of the GQ by another two years, we want to fold up the delayed projects,” added the official.

Steel giants reject miners’ claim on offtake of fines
Financial Express

Taking the battle ahead with stand-alone iron ore miners, integrated steel producers like Tata Steel, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), Jindal Steel, Essar and Ispat Industries have come together to rubbish iron ore miners' claim that off-take of fines by the steel manufacturers is low in the country.

Except for Tata Steel and SAIL, who have captive iron ore mines, all other steel producers use 100% fines for steel production. Overall domestic steel manufacturers use as high as 71% of iron ore fines for the sole reason that yield is much better than that of lump ore.

Players such as SAIL and Tata Steel have also started using over 56% of fines to

improve productivity. Companies such as Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), JSW, Essar and Ispat use 100% fines for steel production.

“SAIL has been using almost entire production of iron ore fines from captive iron ore mines to convert into sinter for making steel. Usage of iron ore fines for sinter and utilising the same results in better productivity and reduces energy consumption,” SAIL chairman SK Roongta said.

In the modernisation and expansion programme of the state-owned company to almost double its capacity to around 26 mt of hot metal, it has been envisaged that entire quantity of fines produced in captive mines would be used for making sinter and pellets, Roongta added.

A Tata Steel spokesperson said that the company has utilised 99% of the total fines produced during 2006-07. “In the ongoing expansion plans at Jamshedpur from 5 mt to 10 mt, a pelletisation plant has also been planned that would help utilisation of 100% of the fines produced in the captive iron ore mines,” the spokesperson added.

JSW Steel joint managing director Y Siva Sagar Rao told FE that fines make a better feed for steel making than lumps as it gives higher productivity and low cost of production.

According to a study carried out by the Economic Research Unit (ERU) under the steel ministry, percentage of iron ore fines production across the country is likely to touch 72% by 2011-12 as against 52% in 2005-06. “Use of pellets is highly recommended to achieve higher productivity, especially for high capacity blast furnaces,” chief economist of ERU Suchitra Sengupta said.

Miners, however, for long have been defending iron ore fine exports saying that there are no takers of fines in the country, which in...

turn leaves no option before them other than export. “Of the 90 mt iron ore exports last year about 85% were fines as very few players in India go for lumps,” general secretary Federation of Indian Mineral Industries RK Sharma said....