Vedanta aluminium maintains prod guidance despite pwr failure

Mining conglomerate Vedanta has maintained production guidance of its aluminium arm at 1.2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) this fiscal even as the firm faced a power shutdown this month at one of its plants.
"The current run rate of aluminium production is around 1 MTPA and the overall 2016-17 volume guidance remains unchanged at 1.2 MTPA," the company led by billionaire Anil Agrawal said in a regulatory filing today.
The commissioning of pots at the first line of the 1.25 MTPA Jharsuguda-II aluminium smelter was completed in end-July 2016, it added.
"The first line was impacted by a pot failure incident due to a power shut down in early August, post which 168 pots were taken out of production. The impacted pots are currently being repaired and relined," the firm said regarding the power failure incident.

The commissioning of the second line commenced in July with 65 pots commissioned till date, and this line will be ramped up in the next 3-6 months, it added.
"We plan to start commissioning of pots at third line of the smelter in September 2016, well ahead of our earlier schedule of Q4 2016-17," Vedanta said.
The 325 kilo tonne (KT) Balco-II smelter was successfully commissioned with all 336 pots operational in August and are expected to capitalised by October 2016, it added.