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Indian miner NMDC’s quarterly profit falls on higher costs and softer prices

The Indian state-owned mining company NMDC announced a lower profit for the first quarter on Tuesday. Higher expenses and lower prices outweighed gains from strong demand in India.

In the quarter ending June 30, the country's biggest state-run iron ore company reported a profit drop of nearly 1% from a previous year to 19,69 billion rupees ($225 million).

Royalties and other levies increased by 33%, to 26.8 trillion rupees. This led to a 38% increase in total expenses.

Indian miners pay a royalty to the government for the right of extracting minerals from their land.

NMDC stated that if a tax law demanding higher royalties be passed, the company will also have to pay 143.74bn rupees to the Karnataka State Government.

Data from commodities consultancy firms BigMint and Systematix Institutional Research showed that domestic iron ore prices fell 14% during the third quarter.

India, which is the third largest iron ore producer in the world, imported 800,000 tons of pellets by 2025. However, shipments from 2021 to 2024 were negligible.

Iron ore, which is used to produce steel, was still in high demand during the first quarter. This was due to increased manufacturing and government expenditure on infrastructure.

The company's revenue in the first quarter rose by 23%, to 66.34 bn rupees. This was primarily due to increased sales at its pellets division, which saw a revenue increase of more than 13 times.

The company's revenue from iron ore increased by 15% during the third quarter. Manvi Pant reports. $1 = 87.6180 Indian Rupees

(source: Reuters)