A plant of Indian Rare Earths Limited in Odisha. Telegraph picture

Berhampur, Aug. 21: Indian Rare Earths Limited (Irel) is all set to extract sand minerals from the beach at Brahmagiri in Puri district.

“We have sought the permission of the Odisha government to extract sand minerals from the beach at Brahmagiri,” said Dhirendra Mohanty, head of the Odisha Sands Complex (Oscom).

The Union department of atomic energy (DAE) has found huge deposits of mineral resources in the area. According to an estimate, about 120 million tonnes of minerals were deposited in the area, official sources said.

Explorations by the DAE have confirmed deposits of heavy minerals such as ilmenite, rutile, garnet, zircon and monazite at various places along the shoreline at Brahmagiri.

“The extraction of minerals from Brahmagiri will be the second project of the Irel in Odisha after 26 years,” said Mohanty.

Earlier, Oscom was commissioned to extract placer deposit across a mining area of 24.64 square kilometres to produce 2,20,000 tonnes of ilmenite and associated minerals such as rutile, zircon, sillimanite and garnet at Matikhalo in Chatrapur.

Oscom is engaged in dredging of raw sand, its upgrade, drying and separation. Ilmenite is primarily exported to agencies engaged in production of slag and sulphatable pigment.