Nalco reports decent production and sales growth in H1 2016-17

India's leading aluminium producer National Aluminium Company Limited (Nalco) has reported impressive results for H1 2016-17. Total aluminium production increased 4.2 per cent from the corresponding period previous year to total at 1.88 lakh tonnes.

Further upstream, bauxite mining was recorded at 35.08 lakh tonnes, a 23.6 per cent increase over the same period of the last year, and alumina hydrate production was up 5.1 per cent year-over-year to stand at 9.68 lakh tonnes.

Revenue-wise too, the Navaratna PSU put up a decent performance. Nalco sold 1.81 lakh tonnes of aluminium, up 5.8 per cent compared to the corresponding period of previous fiscal, and 5.81 lakh tonnes of alumina hydrate up 8.5 per cent from the same period previous fiscal.



Notwithstanding the downturn in the domestic as well as international aluminium industry, the company posted a PAT of INR731 crore in 2015-16 and INR135 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal. This is in stark comparison with the rest of the aluminium companies in the world which have been reeling under pressure and have reported huge losses in the recently ended quarters.

Nalco has set a capex target of INR1021 crore for 2016-17 financial year, which includes projects like development of Utkal D & E Coal Blocks, Wind Power Projects of 50 MW each in Maharashtra and Rajasthan, addition of 5th stream in the existing Alumina Refinery at Damanjodi in Odisha and Aluminium Park at Angul in Odisha.

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Meanwhile, Piyush Goyal, India’s Union Minister of Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines, has also asked the aluminium producer to prepare a prospective future plan to raise its smelting capacity from the present 4.6 lakh tonnes to 20 lakh tonnes per annum.