Vedanta 08/09 aluminium output to rise 28 pct - exec

NEW DELHI, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Vedanta Resources Ltd (VED.L: Quote, Profile, Research) expects aluminium output to rise to about 500,000 tonnes in the year to March 2009, up 28 percent from about 390,000 tonnes in the previous year, a senior company official told Reuters. "Vedanta's total aluminium production is expected to be close to half a million tonnes this year," Pramod Suri, chief executive officer for aluminium, said in a telephone interview. Suri said the company was also hoping to start construction work on an aluminium smelter and a power plant in the east Indian state of West Bengal in three to four months, where it would invest a total of 200 billion rupees ($4.5 billion). The project includes a 650,000-tonne aluminium smelter and a 1,500 megawatt power plant. Suri said the company would start work in about three months on another 650,000-tonne aluminium smelter in Korba in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. The unit is expected to cost 81 billion rupees. Bharat Aluminium Co (BALCO) already runs two smelters in Korba, which are expected to produce about 370,000 tonnes of aluminium in 2008/09, up from 350,000 tonnes a year earlier. London-listed Vedanta has aluminium, zinc, copper, silver and lead operations in India, Australia and Zambia. Suri, who was speaking from Lanjigarh in the eastern state of Orissa where Vedanta is building a refinery, said he expected India's aluminium consumption would rise by 6 to 7 percent annually over the next three to five years. India produces a little over a million tonnes of aluminium every year. Demand has been boosted by new homes, offices and automobiles, all consumers of aluminium, in an economy that has grown at about 9 percent annually in the past few years. ($1 = 44.5 rupees) (Reporting by Biman Mukherji; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)