India, Sept. 11 -- India's secondary steel industry relies on thousands of induction furnaces that need constant relining with ramming mass, a refractory consumable made almost entirely from high-purity quartzite. Companies that supply ramming mass have historically bought that quartzite from third-party mines and traders, rather than owning blocks outright.

That dependence has left refractory manufacturers exposed to changes in the availability and cost of raw materials even as India's capacity for induction-furnace steelmaking continues to grow, prompting some of the better-capitalised players to expand into backward integration into mining, rather than just remain downstream. The move by the monolithisch to lock down its own quartzit...