Nalco to import coal to overcome crisis

In its bid to tide over the coal crisis, National Aluminium Company (Nalco) has placed order to import 2 lakh tonnes of coal and feed its captive power plant (CPP).

The decision in this regard was taken by a Committee of Directors yesterday.

Sourcing coal from Mahanadi Coalfields (MCL), a subsidiary of Coal India, Nalco's 1,200 MW thermal captive power plant at Angul in Orissa supplies power to the company's aluminium smelter located nearby.

The imported coal would start arriving after a week, company sources said.

"We were losing around one crore rupees everyday due to short supply of coal from the linkage provided to us by MCL," BL Bagra, chairman and managing director of Nalco, said.

"We have been receiving on an average 7,400 tonnes of coal per day through this linkage for the past two weeks, as against our daily requirement of 12,000 tonne, primarily due to heavy rainfall," he said.

As a result, Bagra said: "we were constrained to shut down 60 out of 960 operational pots from last Thursday at our smelter to ensure safe operations of the remaining pots. However, it's a temporary closure."