Sixty more pots shut down

Faced with further cut in power supply, the National Aluminium Company (Nalco) has shut down another 60 aluminium making pots at its smelter plant here.

With this, a total of 120 pots have now gone out of operation out of 960 pots in the smelter plant. The company had shut down 60 pots two weeks back due to power problems.

As a result, aluminium production of the company has gone down to 1,050 tonne per day from the normal level of more than 1,200 tonne, said a company source. In money terms, the loss is estimated at Rs two crore per day.

Currently the aluminium major is facing shortage of 200 Mw power as the captive power plant (CPP) of the company, located close to its smelter plant at Angul, is receiving 2,000 tonne less coal per day compared to the normal offtake. “While we need about 12000 tonne of coal to operate six 110 Mw units of CPP, we are getting an average of 8000 tonne from Talcher coalfield. We make up the gap by using the imported coal and procuring coal from other sources like e-auction,” said an official of the company.

The CPP has ten 110 Mw units, but it runs eight units keeping two units on stand-by. But due to coal shortage, the company has shut down two more units. Even the six units, which are running, are not operating on full load due to coal scarcity.

Despite efforts by Nalco authorities to improve coal supply after the shutdown of 60 pots earlier this month, no headway has been made so far.Unless coal supply from Talcher improves shortly, the company the crisis may further precipitate with the company being forced to shut down more pots.

However, an official of Mahanadi Coalfield Ltd (MCL) which supplies coal to Nalco from its Talcher mines, said, steps are being taken to supply more coal to Nalco as per their linkage. It has so far met 96 per cent of linkage coal, he added.

Nalco executive director P R Chaudhury said, “Things have started improving on Sunday with the arrival of better quality coal which will enhance the efficiency of the power plant. The pot shut down is a temporary measure and these will be restored soon after coal supply position improves after the monsoon. The power production at CPP has also increased with availability of better coal.”