Six furnaces adding up to 187 MVA have been set up at Therubali (Rayagada District) and Choudwar (Cuttack District) in Odisha thus making us the largest merchant producer of ferro chrome in India capable of producing up to 275,000 tonnes per annum. We are now working on expanding our smelting capacity to fully utilise the enhanced captive power generation capacity.

There are also many pioneering credits to our name such as being the first Company in the Indian private sector to produce ferro silicon and the first in the Indian sub-continent to produce silicon metal and that too with indigenous technology. Today, we focus almost exclusively on ferro chrome given our competitive strength due to captive chrome ore and power generation.

A mix of open-cast and underground mining operations in Odisha's Jajpur and Keonjhar Districts provide about 0.5 million tonnes of chrome ore annually which caters to our in-house requirement in line with our philosophy of value addition.

Starting with a small mine which catered to a fraction of our requirement, we today have mining rights to 5 chrome ore mines in Odisha's Jajpur and Keonjhar Districts with combined reserves of approximately 21 million tonnes. Sukinda and Mahagiri Chromite Mines in the famous Sukinda Valley – which accounts for more than 90% of India's total chrome ore reserves – account for the bulk of the resources under our control with Nuasahi, Chingudipal and Bangur accounting for the rest.

While initially our mines were all open-cast operations, we have now progressed to underground mining which is more eco-friendly and efficient. In fact, we were the first to undertake developmental activity for starting underground mining in Sukinda Valley and this pioneering effort will enable us to maximise recovery of resources while minimising the load on the environment.