Vedanta continues its technological innovations despite loss at Lanjigarh

Vedanta Aluminium's (VAL) Rs 5,000-crore alumina refinery at Lanjigarh faces trouble over the denial of bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills but that hasn't stopped its technological innovations. The company plans to implement zero-based costing - a method to identify and implement every cost-saving opportunity by cutting ineffencies at every cost centre.

"Our aim is to make Lanjigarh refinery the first zero-based refinery in the world," said Mukesh Kumar, chief executive of VAL.

According to Kumar, the refinery can recover the entire cost of producing alumina by making high-value by-products and also cut down on the pollution load of the plant.

The cost recovery is based on the normal cost of Indian alumina, pegged at $250-260 a tonne. Currently, the company incurs a higher cost of $380 a tonne because, in the absence of access to Niyamgiri resources, it has to bring in bauxite from various parts of the country and abroad.

According to Kumar, bauxite is a rich source of valuable metals such as vanadium, gallium, iron and silica. Add to this the possibilities of recovering a sizeable quantity of caustic soda, a costly input used in alumina-making, and selling of clinkers produced from red mud, a hazardous waste of the plant, the cost of production of alumina could be zero, Kumar added.

The company is working with Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT), Bhubaneswar and the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela to fine-tune the separation process and build pilot projects.

Through mineral beneficiation and high pressure filtering of the slurry, the company intends to separate iron particles (which constitutes 25-32 per cent of bauxite ore) and make pellets.

The firm is working on a project to recover a large amount of caustic soda during high-pressure filtering of slurry after alumina production. This, along with separation of silica during beneficiation, can save the company a substantial cost as with every one per cent increase in silica, the caustic soda consumption goes up by Rs 900 a tonne of alumina.

The removal of iron and silica from the bauxite will also help improve the ore quality, leading to higher productivity, Kumar pointed out. "At Lanjigarh, we are able to produce 0.7-0.8 million tonnes of alumina from a 0.5-million-tonne production line through such innovations."

Besides, the company has set up a pilot project to produce laterite from red mud, a hazardous waste, and sell it to cement industries for use as clinkers.