India NALCO says aluminium output to dip briefly

By Jatindra Dash BHUBANESWAR, India, July 8 (Reuters) - India's state-run National Aluminium Co Ltd (NALCO) (NALU.BO) could see its aluminium output fall this month due to a shortage of coal, a senior company official said on Wednesday. Output could fall by around 10 percent for a week or so, but the disruption was unlikely to affect the company's full-year production target of about 440,000 tonnes, K. S. Sreedhara, executive director of smelter & power, told Reuters. A slowdown in rail and road transportation owing to the monsoon has hurt coal supplies from local mines and overseas. "There may be around 10 percent reduction in daily output for four-five days," said Sreedhara, who is based at the company's smelter in Angul in the eastern state of Orissa. "At this point there is no production loss in aluminium. (But) it may be there in future," he said. NALCO is one of India's biggest aluminium companies. It produced 361,262 tonnes of the metal in 2008/09. [ID:nDEL467747]. "It is a temporary setback and it will recover in next three to four days once the situation normalises," Sreedhara said. (Editing by John Mair) source:www.reuters.com