Vedanta resumes operations at Lanjigarh refinery

After shutting the Lanjigarh refinery in Odisha for more than a week, Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL) today resumed operations after ensuring bauxite supplies of 40,000 tonnes from Bharat Aluminum Company's (Balco) Kawardah mines in Chhattisgarh.

VAL was forced to shut the refinery on October 13 due to the drying up of bauxite supplies.

“We have resumed operations of refinery basing on the 40,000 tonnes bauxite we have sourced from Balco’s Kawardah mines in Chhattisgarh, said Mukesh Kumar, chief operating officer, VAL.

VAL has also started its captive co-generating power plant (CPP) to generate steam, necessary to run the refinery. It may be noted that with the shutdown of the refinery, VAL had also closed its CPP last Saturday, as there was no consumption of steam.

In the meantime, VAL is banking on the 92000 tonne bauxite supplies from Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) after bagging the contract from the state PSU to run the refinery till December 5.

“The first shipment of bauxite containing 45000 tonnes is likely to reach Visakhapatnam port on Wednesday and the next shipment will reach around November 15. Hopefully, as per our commitment to the state government, we will be able to run our plant till December 5 although at 60-70 per cent capacity”, he added.

In addition the company is also discussing with a number of exporters in Gujarat and Maharashtra for diverting the key raw material to the plant.

To run the one million tonne per annum (mtpa) refinery plant at full steam, VAL needs 300,000 tonnes of bauxite every month.

VAL had approached both Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (Fimi) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci), seeking a ban on bauxite exports. While VAL was struggling to keep its refinery operations afloat for want of bauxite, the raw material continued to be exported by private miners in Gujarat and Maharashtra due to better price realisations.

Around 6,500 people, including 550 employed directly, 5,000 engaged indirectly and 1,000 self-employed, in and around the plant depend on the VAL refinery for their livelihood. The company claimed to have spent Rs 150 crore on the development of the local area and community.