Commodity Online
ANGUL (Orissa): Coal shortage is set to hit Nalco’s aluminium production this year. A 110 mw unit of Nalco’s captive power plant was shut down this week due to a shortage of coal.

The drop in power generation has affected aluminium production, prompting company officials to discuss the coal supply issue with MCL authorities.

The aluminium production dropped from 1,100 tonnes per day to 950 tonnes. Faced with the coal shortage, Nalco authorities held an emergency meeting with MCL officers to discuss how to avoid this in the future.

In the face of less supply from Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), the Nalco authorities decided to shut down the unit. At present, seven out of eight units are functional.

Nalco, at present, operates 735 pots in the smelter keeping another five as standby.  However, Nalco is targeting a 20 per cent increase in its aluminium production to 4.35 lakh tonnes for the current fiscal over the year-ago period.

The company produced 3.61 lakh tonnes of the metal in the last fiscal. In terms of the agreement signed by Nalco with the ministry of mines in March, 2009, it will produce 4.35 lakh tonnes of aluminium in the current fiscal, as against 3.61 lakh tonnes in the previous financial year.

The PSU is looking to produce 1.8 million tonnes of alumina in the current fiscal as against 1.5 million tonnes produced in the previous fiscal, he said. Moreover, the company also targets an 18 per cent growth in bauxite production to 5.5 million tonne s for the current fiscal. The bauxite out put in the last fiscal stood at 4.7 million tonnes. In addition to the mineral, Nalco aims to generate 6,510 million units in the current fiscal as compared to 5,541 million units in FY ’09.

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