Vedanta Resources publishes production Release for the Second Quarter and Half Year ending 30 September 2014

Vedanta Resources publishes production Release for the Second Quarter and Half Year ending 30 September 2014.

The company posts the following update on the Aluminium segment.

The Lanjigarh alumina refinery operated above 90% of its rated capacity and produced 226,000 tonnes in Q2. The numbers for the corresponding prior period are not comparable as the plant restarted in July last year and ramped up thereafter.

In Q2, production at the 500kt Jharsuguda-I & 245kt Korba-I smelters remained stable and above rated capacities despite incidences of grid failures. We have realised healthy premiums during the quarter. The continued challenges to coal availability in the country due to lower volumes of e-auction coal, rail logistics constraints and increased reliance on imports continue to adversely impact costs. Due to low coal availability, we resorted to some temporary power purchases at Korba-I during the quarter. We expect this challenging environment for coal availability to continue in the short term till it is alleviated by government policy interventions.

The 84 pots at the 325kt Korba-II smelter ramped up and were capitalized from beginning of September. During the quarter, it produced 19,000 tonnes, of which 13,000 tonnes were under trial runs. We will further ramp up the smelter to full capacity subsequent to the commissioning of the 1,200 MW power plant, for which we are working on the final stages of regulatory approvals.

We have commenced the start up of the first phase of 50 pots of the 1.25 mtpa Jharsuguda II pot-lines and will ramp-up using surplus power from the 1,215 MW power plant.

In September 2014, the Supreme Court of India passed a judgment cancelling 214 coal block allocations since 1993, which included our coal block at BALCO. This block was at advanced stages of approvals but not commenced mining. We await further government action to deal with this matter.