Capacity ramp-up helps Vedanta post 31% growth in aluminium output

This was driven by ramp ups at the Jharsuguda-II and BALCO-II smelters that are progressing well

The ramp up of its smelters at Jharsuguda and the Balco unit at Korba (Chhattisgarh) helped mining & metals conglomerate Vedanta to log 31 per cent growth in aluminium production in 2016-17.

Aluminium output touched a record 1.21 million tonne (mt), rising from 0.92 mt. For the quarter ended March 31, aluminium production was 56 per cent higher at 0.35 mt. This was driven by ramp ups at the Jharsuguda-II and BALCO-II smelters which are progressing well, following the pot outages during the year. All the pots are on line at BALCO-II and are expected stabilise in the first quarter of 2017-18.

"Stabilised production excluding trial run production was 307,000 tonne in Q4. We exited the quarter at a run rate of 1.4 million tonnes (1.2 million tonnes stabilised run rate)", Vedanta said in its production statement.

The rolled product facility at Balco has successfully ramped up its operations following optimisation of its cost structure, and produced 6,653 tonne during the December quarter.

Alumina output by Vedanta was up 24 per cent in last fiscal at the company's Lanjigarh refinery in Odisha as both streams operated, producing 1.2 mt. The refinery currently has a de-bottlenecked capacity of 1.7-2 mt.

Bauxite mines of Balco are in a process of ramp-up with 276,000 of production in the December quarter.