Anrak Aluminium, a joint venture between Penna Group and Ras-Al-Khaimah Investment Authority (UAE), has requested Government of Odisha to find out a possible solution to its bauxite supply uncertainty issue that is making its alumina refinery unit at Makavarapalem, Andhra Pradesh starve since inception. The company clearly does not want the refinery built at a total cost of INR 5600 crore to suffer the same fate as Vedanta’s Lanjigarh refinery.
Anrak had initially set up the 1.5 million tonne-alumina refinery on promise from the Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC) that it will supply bauxite for the unit. The deal mandating 224 million tonnes of bauxite supply was signed during the regime of former chief minister Y Rajashekhar Reddy. However, the deal was scrapped in March 2016 by the N Chandrababu Naidu government on grounds of socio-political unrest among the tribals.
Though Anrak had long completed the construction work at the alumina refinery site in 2013, the project could never take off due to unavailability of bauxite. To bring an end to the long raw material supply uncertainty, the company has now turned to the Odisha government.
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Anrak Aluminium has sought allotment of bauxite resources amounting to 150 million tonnes, to fast track its refinery project. The company has suggested that the state-run Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) preferably allots bauxite mines on the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border.
The company has also expressed intentions to set up a 0.3 million tonnes per annum-smelter plant at Gopalpur in the state with focus on downstream aluminium product manufacturing.
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