India rejected Vedanta Resources Plc’s proposal to expand its alumina refinery complex in the country, according to a notice from the Environment Ministry.
The ministry ordered the company to not undertake any new construction at the site, the notice said. Vedanta, which runs a 1 million metric ton refinery at Lanjigarh in the eastern state of Orissa, planned to spend 375 billion rupees （$8.5 billion） to raise capacity to 6 million tons.
Vedanta, controlled by billionaire Anil Agarwal, won approval from the Orissa government on Aug. 10 to implement the expansion. Two weeks later, the Environment Ministry said Vedanta’s refinery may be sourcing bauxite from mines without environmental approvals and asked Vedanta to justify why the permit for the refinery should not be canceled.
“We’ve yet to receive any notice from the ministry,” Mukesh Kumar, chief operating officer of Vedanta Aluminium Ltd., the company’s Indian unit, said by phone today.
Vedanta may receive a notice today from the Environment Ministry for breaching norms at the expansion site of its alumina refinery, Minister Jairam Ramesh had said yesterday in an interview.
The company will cut its investments by as much as $2 billion in the next two years after failing to get clearance to mine bauxite at the Niyamgiri hills in the state, Vedanta Chief Executive Officer Mahendra Singh Mehta said Oct. 7. The capital expenditure revision “will have an impact of between $1.5 billion and $2 billion,” Mehta said, clarifying the numbers were tentative.
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