News and Events

Nalco sales aluminium at premium

India's state-run National Aluminium Co Ltd (Nalco) sold 9,000 tonnes of aluminium ingots at US$88 per tonne premium over the average LME cash price on a cost, insurance and freight basis, reports said. The buyer, Swiss trader Glencore, will be supplied six batches of 1,500 tonnes each of the metal from April to September, said the source. Nalco's sale prices are watched as they generally serve as an international benchmark. The firm last sold 3,600 tonnes of aluminium ingots at a premium of US$78 a tonne over the average LME cash price on a cost, insurance and freight basis on March 12. Meanwhile, the company has set eyes on to emerge as a reputed global company in the metals and energy sector with a turnover of Rs 25,000 crore by 2020, according to its 'Vision and Corporate Plan – 2009-2020'. Prepared by Gurgaon-based Management Development Institute (MDI), the Vision Plan hinges upon three key directions viz globalisation, diversification and growth to achieve its goal of an international player. The company is working on a plan to debottleneck its operations through globalisaiton through acquisition of downstream production facilities, smelting in low energy cost regions and acquisition of coal and other mines. For this the company plans to float a subsidiary, Nalco International. It also has been aggressively expanding its capacities in its mines, refinery, smelter and captive power plant. For the second phase expansion to be completed in a couple of months, a capex of around Rs 4400 crore was fully funded by internal accruals. As the vision plan, the company is to invest around Rs 58,000 crore from this fiscal till 2019-20 to implement several projects including third phase expansion (Rs 6980 crore). The third phase expansion will increase its capacity from 4.6 lakh TPY to 6.4 lakh TPY, alumina refinery strength from 21 lakh MT to 29.75 lakh TPY, bauxite mining from 63 lakh TPY TO 89.25 lakh TPY and captive power plant from 1200 MW to 1700 MW. The company plans to set up a Rs 16,000 crore green field smelter and CPP project at Jharsuguda in Orissa and a Rs 5,600 crore alumina refinery at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.