
According to a report by CARE Ratings, India’s aluminium production, which was at 3.39 million tonnes in 2017-18, is forecast to remain stable or grow a little to 3.42 million tonnes in the fiscal year 2018-19. The giants like National Aluminium Company (Nalco), Bharat Aluminium (Balco), a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources, and Hindalco are some of the key players in the Indian aluminium sectors.
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{alcircleadd}Having said that, a good number of aluminium producers and cement and ceramic producers in India import a substantial amount of alumina for consumption. One of them is Vedanta Aluminium that has been importing a large amount of alumina to feed its smelters, as being unable to source bauxite from Odisha for its Lanjigarh refinery as promised.
In fact, it is noteworthy that India’s alumina import by volume is found increasing over the past three years. In the calendar year 2016, India had imported alumina of around 1.25 million tonnes, which in 2017 increased by 60.8 per cent to 2.01 million tonnes. According to the global export-import data, the estimated volume of India’s alumina import is expected to grow even further in CY 2018. It is forecast to increase by 102 per cent from 2016 and 26 per cent from 2017 to stand at 2.53 million tonnes.

However, in early September this year, Vedanta for the first time received bauxite from Kodingamali mines owned by Odisha Mining Corporations for its Lanjigarh alumina refinery. The refinery in the meanwhile had begun to expand its production capacity from 2 million tonnes to 4 million tonnes and subsequently to 6 million tonnes by 2021. On receiving bauxite from the state-owned company, Vedanta is thus, now optimistic about the completion of its refinery expansion project that may result in reducing India’s alumina import volume in the future.
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