Top mining and metals sector trends and challenges in 2023

Coal and iron ore are key driving factors of the mining sector in India. There lies a huge scope and opportunity for increasing the capacities of coal and iron ore mines and considerable opportunities for future discoveries of sub-surface deposits. While India has adequate iron ore reserves, however, the same is not the case for coal as there are not sufficient reserves for coking/metallurgical coal. To keep the industry globally competitive, India plans to maximize the use of its domestic reserves to meet its requirement for coking coal to reduce iron ore to iron.

The Government of India is also working toward the development of the metals and mining sector by launching key policy initiatives and regulatory interventions in the auction process, levy of duties, and land availability. Private sector has also adapted new technologies, automation and digitization. However, there is still a considerable scope of improvement . 

The Indian steel sector has been vibrant and is growing at a CAGR of about 5% to 6% y-o-y. With a V-shaped demand recovery post-COVID-19 and the policy announcements made by the government across sectors, including rail, road, aviation, gas pipeline, and housing and changes in global supply and demand equations, the industry has had record production and growth in FY 2021 and 2022.

There are several tangible benefits that may be realized by increasing adoption of emerging technologies in the mining sector:

1. Improving human efficiency and develop extensive real-time performance systems in the overall supply chain of the industry
2. Digital manufacturing based on artificial intelligence involving predictive and preventive analytics
3. Effective sourcing of input raw materials
4. Optimizing consumption through right material blends
5. Maximizing throughout and capacity utilization
6. Maintaining consistent quality

India's ambition for 2047 is to become a global leader and the third largest economy in the world. The ministry's goal for green steel is to increase steel production capacity through scrap by 60%, to 300 million tons, and to reduce crude steel's carbon footprint by 50%, from 2.6 T CO2/T to 1.3 T CO2/T. This is a tremendous opportunity for which it is extremely important for India to devise a strategy which brings finance and tech together to achieve the goals which have been setup for the mining sector.