India imported about 1.3 million tons of alumina in 2016; Australia tops the exporter list

India has an installed alumina capacity of 6.5.million tons and the reported production of alumina stands at 4 million tons in 2014-15 which increased by about 6% YOY. NALCO continues to be the leading producer of alumina in India accounting for about 45% of the total production. A very small portion of the company’s production is sold to domestic companies and the rest of it is exported internationally

However, a good number of aluminium producers and cement and ceramic producers in India import substantial amounts of alumina for consumption. According to the last reported figures from Indian Ministry of Mines, imports of alumina decreased considerably to 7.90 lakh tonnes in 2014-15 from 11.69 lakh tonnes in the previous year. Imports were mainly from Australia (86%), China (7%) and Netherlands (4%).

As shown by the data, India imported about 8,74,218 tons of alumina in 2015. In 2016, the country imported about 1.3 milliontons of alumina driven by the consumption growth by the domestic aluminium producers. Considering the data for the last two years, for 2017, India is estimated to import 1.4 million tons of alumina.

The cost of alumina import stood at USD 355 million in 2015. In 2016, the import generated a cost of USD 415 million. Based on the trends in last two years, the cost of import for alumina in 2017 is estimated to be USD 501 million.

According to latest statistics, India imports the largest amount of alumina from Australia (about 1,014,540 tonnes) and China exports about 57,662 tonnes to India.

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It is noteworthy that Vedanta Aluminium has been importing a substantial amount of alumina to feed its smelters, as the company is not being able to source bauxite from Odisha for its Lanjigarh refinery as promised. Recently, National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) and Vedanta are in discussion to sort out alumina sourcing related issues that the latter has been facing since long. The central government has asked the Navaratna PSU to consider selling alumina to Vedanta.  If this materializes, it would cut down on the import burden of alumina in India.