Nalco shuts down 200 pots due to coal shortage

Acute shortage of coal forced the National Aluminium Company to close down more than 200 pots in its smelter plant on Monday bringing down the production of aluminium by 250 tonne per day.

Prior to this, Nalco was running 823 pots of the 960 pots in the smelter plant and the present shut down is bound to reflect on the aluminium production.

“We have now started shutting down pots in a gradual manner so that the whole process will be completed within a week. The total metal production which remained an average of 1100 tonne will come down to 850 tonne now,” said a higher official of Nalco.

The decision to cut down aluminium production was taken after the company was forced to curtail power generation to 600 MW from the current 800 MW.

Coal crisis at Nalco began after operation of its feeding coalmine Bharatapur at Talcher coalfield of Mahanadi Coalfield Limited was stopped by the Central Mines Safety Department following death of a casual worker. It was almost nil through the merry-go-round system. It drew coal from the other MCL mines which remained short of its demand. At present, coal stock in Nalco stockyard is below one lakh tonne which will suffice for just five days.

“We have been receiving 8,000 tonnes to 9,000 tonnes of coal instead of linkage demand of 13,000 to 14,000 tonnes per day from April 1. The shortfall of 66,000 tonnes has reduced the stock to an extent that it is not even feasible to operate all seven power units. Hence, the decision was taken to slash power generation by shutting down more units in the captive power plant,” the official said.