Anrak Aluminium Limited (AAL), a joint venture of Penna Group and Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority, is reportedly taking a serious effort to recommence operations at its alumina refinery in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The company is planning to arrive at a one-time settlement with the SBI-led consortium of banks for putting its 1.5 million tonne alumina refinery in order.
A few years ago, the refinery was built after acquiring 2,300 acres of land through the AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation at Rachapalli, 80 KM away from AAL’s alumina refinery at Makavaripalem in Vizag. The refinery project was completed in 2013, along with a 72x3-MW captive power plant, with a total investment of 6000 crore, which was half of its loan through the consortium.
Earlier, many other refinery companies had also strived to mine in that area because of its huge deposits of bauxite ore but failed due to the tribal and political oppositions.
After bifurcation of the state, the Telegu Desam Government had scrapped the MOU signed with AAL for securing bauxite ore from Jerrela and other blocks through the AP Mineral Development Corporation. The MOU was signed in 2007 in the undivided AP.
AAL Vice-President LS Rao said in an interview, “Even before launching of production, the banks declared the loan borrowed from them as NPA. Now, we are in an advance stage of coming to a settlement for the removal of the NPA tag and launching the refinery operations by sourcing bauxite ore from Gujarat and Odisha and also outside India.”
“We also want to source raw material from Australia, Guinea and Indonesia to ensure continuous production at our refinery,” he added, since the company would require total 4.5 million tonnes of bauxite ore per annum to operate the refinery at full capacity.
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