In a major development for the mining market in India – one of the country’s leading iron ore producers and miners, Lloyds Metals, on July 1 completed the acquisition of 80% of Thriveni Earthmovers Pvt Ltd, its says to further solidify its position in the mining industry. Thriveni is a major Mining Developer cum Operator (MDO) player in India, and its MDO business has now been demerged as a subsidiary of Lloyds.
MDO is a term used in India for comprehensive contract mining services, and Thriveni is one of the leading mining contractors in the country – with operations including Thriveni Sainik Mining, a joint venture between Thriveni and Sainik Mining & Allied Services Ltd. In September 2015, NTPC, India’s largest power generation company, appointed Thriveni Sainik as its mine developer and operator for the Pakri Barwadih Coal Block in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. The project includes one of the longest coal conveyor systems in Asia.
In iron ore, Thriveni was already the mining contractor for Lloyds’ massive Surjagarh iron ore mine in the Gadchiroli district of Maharastra, one of the the largest in India with 857 Mt of reserves and production plans to ramp up to 55 Mt/y. Lloyds Metals received the Environment Clearance for the expansion in June 2025. The company plans to initially mine 26 Mt/y of haematite (Direct Sales Ore).
Over time, production will ramp up to the 55 Mt/y , incorporating up to 45 Mt of banded haematite quartzite (BHQ). As beneficiation plants become operational, the company will transition from using haematite DSO to beneficiated ore. The production capacity stood at 10 Mt/y in FY25. For comparison, the largest iron ore mine in India today is state company NMDC’s Chhattisgarh, which produced 20.47 Mt in 2024, with the company overall producing 30.47 Mt – NMDC also has big plans to reach 55 Mt/y. All these expansions are aimed at boosting India’s steel industry – India plans to expand its steel production capacity from 200 Mt/y to over 330 Mt/y by 2030.
Lloyds Metals and Thriveni have already been working together to make this site a pioneering green mining operation in India, and it has already the first all electric truck fleet in India, operated by Thriveni – this consists of 34 SANY 70 t class SKT105E trucks made in India at SANY’s factory in Bharat, which use a dedicated mine charging station. The green fleet also includes Thriveni has also taken innovative steps with its mining fleet over the years such as converting its fleet of diesel hydraulic excavators to cable electric using its own in-house engineering team and dedicated rebuild centre. It is now using this knowledge to convert a fleet of EX1200 excavators supplied by Tata Hitachi for Surjagarh as well.
Through green technologies and a commitment to decarbonisation, the mine has significantly reduced CO₂ emissions. In addition to the SANY fleet and converted excavators, equipment includes an innovative LiuGong 4280DE electric motor grader and four 856HE electric LiuGong wheel loaders.
Its expansion plans also include the use of state of the art mineral processing equipment such as 18 x FTM5000 vertical tower mills and two 3 m by 2 m HPGRs which are some of the largest of their kind ever delivered and are 30-40% more efficient than traditional systems. These are being supplied by FLSmidth, with the order mentioned in the company’s earnings call for Q1 2025. These will be deployed in 2026/2027 in a 45 Mt/y dry grinding facility at Hedri in the Surjagarh area that is under construction which will upgrade the banded haematite quartzite into a high-grade iron concentrate, unlocking its potential as a valuable resource for the steel industry. Hedri will also use Wet High Intensity Magnetic Separation (WHIMS) extensively plus FLSmidth’s nextSTEP™ flotation cell technology.
The BHQ has 30-35% Fe, and about 13.5 Mt/y of concentrate of +63 % grade Fe will be produced. This will be slurried and pumped via an 87 km 10 Mt/y pipeline to the 4 Mt/y pellet plant at Konsari. These were both commissioned in June 2025, with the pipeline utilising three powerful GEHO pumps from Weir Group.
Back to Thriveni Earthmovers, the acquisition reasoning is that Thriveni was mining at Surjagarh anyway and owning the contractor will mean swifter execution at optimised costs while ramping up the mining output from 10 Mt/y to 55 Mt/y. It should generate substantial cost savings on iron ore on a consolidated basis. Not only that but Lloyds also wants to grow Thriveni’s MDO business outside its own operations
Lloyds and Thriveni have a strategic vision to execute a mining services order book exceeding US$1 billion over the next 15 to 18 years and not only in India but also further afield – Thriveni already has experience with PT Thriveni Indo Mining in South Kalimantan, Indonesia at the Satui Coal Project for Arutmin.