Vedanta Aluminium says coal imports make no sense

Vedanta Aluminium on Tuesday said it was neither in the interest of any company, nor in the interest of the country, to depend on imported coal when there were ample coal reserves at home, with extraction cost as low as Rs 510 per tonne for open cast and less than Rs 2,040 for underground mining.

“Imported coal is, at best, a fallback option. Government should at least make arrangements to meet the coal needs of hinterland projects. Coal needs should be met only from the local sources,” said S K Roongta, managing director of Vedanta Aluminium.

The government is looking at policy options such as auctioning new captive coal blocks and Vedanta was ready to bid for those once the policy was in place, he said on the sidelines of a three-day international aluminium conference which began here on Tuesday.

Vendanta is currently implementing plans to scale up the group's total aluminium production capacity to 2.5 million tonnes. Roongta says the company expects to achieve the total intended capacity in less than two years from now. An investment of Rs 60,000 crore had been readied on capacity expansion, including captive power projects, and 75 per cent of the capex had already been made, Roongta said.

The aluminum industry depends extensively on captive power generation.

There has been poor progres on a captive coal block jointly given to five companies, including Vedanta, at Rampia in Odisha.

It is also looking forward to early clearances for bauxite reserve leases, since the company is presently buying aluminum ore from mining companies in Gujarat and elsewhere.