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Indian Aluminium plans to double capacity

Indian Aluminium Co Ltd plans to double the annual production capacity of its Hirakud smelter over the next year by shifting half of 400 electrolytic pots lying idle at another unit, a senior company official said.

With the completion of move, likely to take about a year, annual production capacity of Indal's Hirakud aluminium smelter in the eastern state of Orissa will rise to about 60,000 tonnes from 30,000 tonnes, he said.

"We plan to commence shifting of 200 pots to Hirakud from Belgaum plant next month," the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters on Thursday.

Electrolytic pots are used to smelt alumina to produce the metal.

The firm also operates a 13,000-tonne-a-year capacity aluminium smelter at Alupuram in Kerala.

Indal, which contributes about seven per cent of India's total aluminium output, would invest Rs 2.5 billion ($53 million) to shift 200 pots, he added.

This would be the first phase in the project, with the second phase, which involves the shift of the balance 200 pots due later.

Indal stopped aluminium production at its Belgaum smelter in Karnataka in 1995 due to high cost of power supplied by the state government. The smelter has a total of 400 pots but does not operate its own power plant.

"Any decision to shift the remaining pots would be taken only after completion of the first phase," the official said.

He said the setting up of a power plant at Belgaum would not be a viable option due to the poor availability of coal. Setting up of plants using other raw materials would also be economically unviable, he said.

The company operates its own power plant, with a capacity of 67.5 MW, at Hirakud and plans to expand it to meet the increased energy requirements, he said, but did not elaborate.

Hindalco Industries, India's largest aluminium maker, acquired Indal last year when it purchased the majority stake of Canada's Alcan Aluminium in the firm.

Indal produced 43,924 tonnes of aluminium in the fiscal year ending March 2001 against 43,458 tonnes a year earlier.

Hindalco runs a 242,000-tonne-a-year aluminium smelter at Renukoot in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Hindalco is a part of the Aditya Birla Group, one of the country's biggest conglomerates with interest in fibres, cement, metals and telecommunications.

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