NALCO Secures Coal Supply, Averts Alumina Refinery Shutdown

Bloomberg reported that NALCO has overcome a shortage of coal that threatened to close its 1.6 million tonnes refinery. Nalco official said that it expects to receive 7,000 tonnes of the fuel from a unit of Coal India Limited. That's enough to last three days. Mr C R Pradhan chairman of NALCO said that “At the moment, a shutdown of the alumina refinery seems remote. Output at the Damanjodi plant in the eastern Orissa state has halved to about 2,000 tonnes since July 26th. The refinery requires 2,500 tonnes of coal everyday to produce 4,500 tonnes of alumina.” He added that normal supply of coal is expected to be resumed soon. According to the report, this is a second time in as many months that NALCO has been forced to cut production because of a coal shortage, mirroring problems faced by bigger Asian rivals. Aluminum Corp. of China Limited and 19 Chinese producers on July 10th agreed to reduce output by as much as 10% because of a nationwide power deficit. The report added that NALCO makes 345,000 tonnes of aluminum and 1.6 million tonnes of alumina annually. It requires 14,000 tonnes of coal daily to fire its 960 megawatt power plant. Electricity accounts for about 30% of costs for aluminum smelters. Source: SteelGuru