KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL) and the Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha Limited (IDCOL), the investment arm of the eastern Indian province of Odisha, on Wednesday signed an agreement to float a joint venture (JV) company for beach sand mining project.
The 51:49 IREL-IDCOL JV would apply for a fresh lease for beach sand exploration and mining, and also consider downstream projects, Odisha secretary to the Industry Department Sanjeev Chopra said.
He said that a prefeasibility report had already been prepared, according to which the development and construction period would be about 24 months and pay-back for the initial investment of an estimated $70-million would be about five years.
The proposed JV would apply for a lease of beach sand in Gopalpur to Puri coast along the Bay of Bengal and a mineral processing plant would be constructed in close proximity.
According to Chopra, Odisha had a large reserve of beach sand minerals along its coastal belt with ilmentite as the largest constituent of the deposit, with most of it untapped.
According to a 2011 report of the Ministry of Mines, Odisha has the third largest deposits of ilmenite in the country. Andhra Pradesh has the biggest followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In Odisha major deposits have been identified near Chhatrapur, in Ganjam district, and Brahmagiri, in Puri district.