Vedanta Ltd, the Indian arm of the London-listed metals and mining conglomerate Vedanta Resources Plc, has logged 38 per cent surge in its aluminium production in FY18.
Vedanta reported a record production of 1.67 million tonnes in the last fiscal and is likely to be the biggest aluminium producer, upstaging Aditya Birla Group controlled Hindalco Industries. The surge in aluminium output of Vedanta is the result of its ramp-up activities of its smelters at Jharusuguda and the BALCO smelting unit at Korba (Chhattisgarh).
While Vedanta has completed the ramp-up work at BALCO, work on ramp-up of the third and fourth potlines at Jharsuguda is still pending. At the third line, 220 pots are powered on and their ramp-up was delayed due to infrastructure development works undertaken by the railway authorities for capacity enhancement, the company said in its production statement. The third line is expected to be fully ramped up by the end of September this year while the fourth line continues to be under evaluation.
Vedanta’s alumina production at its Lanjigarh refinery in Odisha was flat year-on-year (y-o-y) at 1.2 million tonnes in the kasr financial year. For Q4 of FY18, alumina production was 0.35 million tonnes, higher 22 per cent quarter-on-quarter and seven per cent y-o-y. The company attributed this to de-bottlenecking of the refinery in Q3 of FY18 and consistent availability of bauxite.
Availability of domestic coal continues to be the focus area for the company management. “While materialisation of linkages has improved quarter-on-quarter, we are continuing to engage with Coal India to improve materialisation further and e-auction coal availability”, the company’s statement said.
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