Hyderabad, May 2 (IANS): The Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC) and state-owned Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) have signed an agreement to form a joint venture for exploration and mining of magnetite iron ore.

Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), a 51:49 joint venture will be formed which will undertake exploration and extraction in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.

The agreement was inked by Girija Shankar, vice chairman and managing director of APMDC and D. Nageshwara Rao, director, pperations, RINL, a statement by APMDC said here on Saturday.

After securing necessary mandatory clearances from the central government under the Mines and Mineral Development and Regulation Amendment 2015, the rights over the mineral will be transfered to the joint venture.

APMDC would then work towards extraction of the mineral. It will also process the mineral, which will be entirely used by RINL for its steel making.

AAPMDC has signed another MoU with oil and gas major ONGC Ltd to set up a unit for improving the quality of barytes mined from the Mangampeta mines of Kadapa district in Andhra Pradesh.

The MoU was signed during the recent industry mission held at Visakhapatnam in the presence of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

The agreement was inked by Girija Shankar on behalf of APMDC and D. Sanyal from ONGC.

As the barytes from Mangampeta mines hitherto mined has 30 to 40 per cent lower grade, the unit will improve its quality. About 50 lakh tonne barytes already mined is lying unused due to lower grade quality.

The proposed joint venture unit with ONGC would increase the grade by taking up its purification process. This is also expected to help APMDC to export barytes.

During April 2015, 311,414 metric tonnes of barytes was mined, which the corporation said was the highest mined in the past four years. It is proposed to further step up mining and garner additional revenues.