In a significant growth for the mining market in India – one of many nation’s main iron ore producers and miners, Lloyds Metals, on July 1 accomplished the acquisition of 80% of Thriveni Earthmovers Pvt Ltd, its says to additional solidify its place within the mining business. Thriveni is a significant Mining Developer cum Operator (MDO) participant in India, and its MDO enterprise has now been demerged as a subsidiary of Lloyds.
MDO is a time period utilized in India for complete contract mining companies, and Thriveni is likely one of the main mining contractors within the nation – with operations together with Thriveni Sainik Mining, a three way partnership between Thriveni and Sainik Mining & Allied Providers Ltd. In September 2015, NTPC, India’s largest energy technology firm, appointed Thriveni Sainik as its mine developer and operator for the Pakri Barwadih Coal Block in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. The challenge contains one of many longest coal conveyor methods in Asia.
In iron ore, Thriveni was already the mining contractor for Lloyds’ large Surjagarh iron ore mine within the Gadchiroli district of Maharastra, one of many the biggest in India with 857 Mt of reserves and manufacturing plans to ramp as much as 55 Mt/y. Lloyds Metals obtained the Atmosphere Clearance for the enlargement in June 2025. The corporate plans to initially mine 26 Mt/y of haematite (Direct Gross sales Ore).
Over time, manufacturing will ramp as much as the 55 Mt/y , incorporating as much as 45 Mt of banded haematite quartzite (BHQ). As beneficiation crops turn out to be operational, the corporate will transition from utilizing haematite DSO to beneficiated ore. The manufacturing capability stood at 10 Mt/y in FY25. For comparability, the biggest iron ore mine in India right this moment is state firm NMDC’s Chhattisgarh, which produced 20.47 Mt in 2024, with the corporate general producing 30.47 Mt – NMDC additionally has huge plans to achieve 55 Mt/y. All these expansions are aimed toward boosting India’s metal business – India plans to increase its metal manufacturing capability from 200 Mt/y to over 330 Mt/y by 2030.
Lloyds Metals and Thriveni have already been working collectively to make this website a pioneering inexperienced mining operation in India, and it has already the primary all electrical truck fleet in India, operated by Thriveni – this consists of 34 SANY 70 t class SKT105E vehicles made in India at SANY’s manufacturing facility in Bharat, which use a devoted mine charging station. The inexperienced fleet additionally contains Thriveni has additionally taken modern steps with its mining fleet through the years resembling changing its fleet of diesel hydraulic excavators to cable electrical utilizing its personal in-house engineering workforce and devoted rebuild centre. It’s now utilizing this information to transform a fleet of EX1200 excavators equipped by Tata Hitachi for Surjagarh as nicely.
By way of inexperienced applied sciences and a dedication to decarbonisation, the mine has considerably lowered CO₂ emissions. Along with the SANY fleet and transformed excavators, tools contains an modern LiuGong 4280DE electrical motor grader and 4 856HE electrical LiuGong wheel loaders.
Its enlargement plans additionally embrace using cutting-edge mineral processing tools resembling 18 x FTM5000 vertical tower mills and two 3 m by 2 m HPGRs that are a few of the largest of their form ever delivered and are 30-40% extra environment friendly than conventional methods. These are being equipped by FLSmidth, with the order talked about within the firm’s earnings name for Q1 2025. These can be deployed in 2026/2027 in a forty five Mt/y dry grinding facility at Hedri within the Surjagarh space that’s below building which can improve the banded haematite quartzite right into a high-grade iron focus, unlocking its potential as a priceless useful resource for the metal business. Hedri can even use Moist Excessive Depth Magnetic Separation (WHIMS) extensively plus FLSmidth’s nextSTEP™ flotation cell know-how.
The BHQ has 30-35% Fe, and about 13.5 Mt/y of focus of +63 % grade Fe can be produced. This can be slurried and pumped through an 87 km 10 Mt/y pipeline to the 4 Mt/y pellet plant at Konsari. These had been each commissioned in June 2025, with the pipeline utilising three highly effective GEHO pumps from Weir Group.
Again to Thriveni Earthmovers, the acquisition reasoning is that Thriveni was mining at Surjagarh anyway and proudly owning the contractor will imply swifter execution at optimised prices whereas ramping up the mining output from 10 Mt/y to 55 Mt/y. It ought to generate substantial price financial savings on iron ore on a consolidated foundation. Not solely that however Lloyds additionally needs to develop Thriveni’s MDO enterprise outdoors its personal operations
Lloyds and Thriveni have a strategic imaginative and prescient to execute a mining companies order guide exceeding US$1 billion over the following 15 to 18 years and never solely in India but in addition additional afield – Thriveni already has expertise with PT Thriveni Indo Mining in South Kalimantan, Indonesia on the Satui Coal Challenge for Arutmin.
