Business Standard
Vedanta may shut down Lanjigarh refinery temporarily from Friday 12th Oct
Edited by : AL CIRCLE
2 min read
Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL), which had announced to close down its alumina refinery in Odisha from December 5 for want of bauxite, may go for a temporary shutdown of the facility in a day or two, much before the due date.
With no immediate supply of bauxite in sight, the company said, it will be compelled to shut the refinery for 10-15 days, latest by Friday.
"Going by our current stock of bauxite, we will not be in a position to run the refinery after a day or two. Then, we have to take a painful decision to shut our refinery plant for 10-15 days. Already, the refinery's capacity utilization has slumped to 30-35 per cent for the past 8-9 days and it is not advisable to run the plant at this depleted capacity for technical reasons”, a top company executive told Business Standard.
VAL's only glimmer of hope- sourcing bauxite from state run Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) is unlikely to come to its immediate rescue as this deal is expected to take some time to materialize.
The closure of the refinery is set to put at stake livelihood of 6,500 people, including 550 employed directly, 5,000 engaged indirectly and 1,000 self-employed in and around the plant. The company claimed to have spent Rs 150 crore on the development of the local area and community.
VAL has not been allotted any mining lease in Odisha and fully depends on externally sourced bauxite to run its refinery. It had entered into a pact with state controlled miner Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) for supply of bauxite from Niyamgiri hills. However, attempts to mine bauxite at the ecologically sensitive hills were red flagged by the Union environment ministry that had scrapped the Stage-II forest clearance on August 24, 2010.
Following Niyamgiri debacle, VAL had filed 26 applications with the state government, seeking alternative bauxite deposits. But the state government is yet to take any action on them.
“There is no readily available bauxite that we can offer to Vedanta Aluminium. There is no dearth of bauxite deposits in the state. But the mines have to be opened and these need regulatory approvals. Moreover, the Niyamgiri case is still locked up in the Supreme Court and there is nothing the state government can do about it", state chief secretary B K Patnaik had said recently.
With no immediate supply of bauxite in sight, the company said, it will be compelled to shut the refinery for 10-15 days, latest by Friday.
"Going by our current stock of bauxite, we will not be in a position to run the refinery after a day or two. Then, we have to take a painful decision to shut our refinery plant for 10-15 days. Already, the refinery's capacity utilization has slumped to 30-35 per cent for the past 8-9 days and it is not advisable to run the plant at this depleted capacity for technical reasons”, a top company executive told Business Standard.
VAL's only glimmer of hope- sourcing bauxite from state run Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) is unlikely to come to its immediate rescue as this deal is expected to take some time to materialize.
The closure of the refinery is set to put at stake livelihood of 6,500 people, including 550 employed directly, 5,000 engaged indirectly and 1,000 self-employed in and around the plant. The company claimed to have spent Rs 150 crore on the development of the local area and community.
VAL has not been allotted any mining lease in Odisha and fully depends on externally sourced bauxite to run its refinery. It had entered into a pact with state controlled miner Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) for supply of bauxite from Niyamgiri hills. However, attempts to mine bauxite at the ecologically sensitive hills were red flagged by the Union environment ministry that had scrapped the Stage-II forest clearance on August 24, 2010.
Following Niyamgiri debacle, VAL had filed 26 applications with the state government, seeking alternative bauxite deposits. But the state government is yet to take any action on them.
“There is no readily available bauxite that we can offer to Vedanta Aluminium. There is no dearth of bauxite deposits in the state. But the mines have to be opened and these need regulatory approvals. Moreover, the Niyamgiri case is still locked up in the Supreme Court and there is nothing the state government can do about it", state chief secretary B K Patnaik had said recently.
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