Won't mine bauxite from Niyamgiri sans locals' consent: Sesa

Company is working on securing captive feedstock for their alumina refinery

Sesa Sterlite Limited, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources Inc, today said it doesn't want to source bauxite from Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha without taking locals into confidence.

"We are working on securing captive feedstock for our alumina refinery. We are engaged with the government of Odisha for securing bauxite supply under the memorandum of understanding," Navin Agarwal, Chairman, Sesa Sterlite said.

He was addressing the 49th annual general meeting of the company here, attended by majority of the shareholders.

"We are not seeking to source bauxite from Niyamgiri without the consent of local communities," he assured the shareholders in his speech, which underlined that the company will build and grow itself as a global diversified natural resources major.

Agarwal said the natural resource sector has the potential to add USD one trillion to the economy and can generate significant new employment opportunities.

"Our operations have so far been contributing 0.6% of GDP and we aim to contribute one percent," he said.

Agarwal said in the oil and gas business at Cairn India, the company delivered the milestone production of 2,00,000 barrels of oil per day from Rajasthan oil field.

"During the year, we also crossed another major landmark of cumulative gross production of 200 million barrels of oil from Rajasthan," he added.

The Chairman said the company has been carrying out the largest ever exploration and appraisal programme of Cairn India at Rajasthan.

"This exploration has already resulted in establishing over one billion barrels of hydrocarbons in place to the existing 4.2 billion barrels," he added.

Agarwal told the shareholders that over next three years, the company is targeting a reserve replacement ratio of 150 percent based on confidence in exploration potential in Rajasthan, and rapidly monetising the discovered resources.

As per the records circulated to the shareholders for FY14, the company reported pro-forma revenues of over Rs 72,000 crore.

The company claimed to have strong balance sheet with cash and liquid investment of over Rs 50,000 crore.

It contributed Rs 31,000 crore to Indian exchequer during the year, the company said.