Vedanta Resources reports record aluminium production for FY 2017

Vedanta Resources releases production report for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year ended 31 March 2017 and registers record annual production for the aluminium segment.

Commenting on the results, the present Chief Executive Officer, Tom Albanese said: "In line with our strategic priority to ramp up production at our Zinc, Aluminium, Power and Iron Ore businesses, I am happy to say that we have achieved strong results on this front during the year."

Vedanta reports a record aluminium production of 353,000 tonnes in Q4 FY 2017, registering a growth of 11% QoQ and 56% higher YoY. This was attributed to production ramp ups at the Jharsuguda-II and BALCO-II smelters which are taking place on schedule, following the pot outages during 2016. The complete potline is expected to stabilize in the coming quarter.

Stabilised production which excludes trial run production stood at 307,000 tonnes in Q4. The company wound up the quarter at a production run rate of 1.4 million tonnes and a stabilized run rate of 1.2 million tonnes.

* Jharsuguda 1,800MW and Balco 270 MW have been moved from the Power to the Aluminum segment from 1^st April 2016.  

BALCO rolling plant has produced 6,653 tonnes during the quarter after successful ramp up and optimisation of its cost structure.

BALCO bauxite mines are in a process of ramp up and produced 276,000 tonnes of bauxite in Q4 FY2017 with an exit run rate of 100,000 tonnes per month. Both streams of the Lanjigarh refinery produced 313,000 tonnes of alumina in Q4 FY2017, 48% up YoY and down 5% QoQ with an exit run rate of 1.4 million tonnes. The refinery currently has a debottlenecked annual capacity of 1.7 - 2.0 million tonnes.

There were no external sales from the 1,800 MW Jharsuguda power plant in Q4 FY2017, due to a weak power market. However, the PLF's will continue to increase along with the ramp up of Jharsuguda-II smelter.

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Coal linkages of 6mtpa secured through auctions in Q2 FY2017 for the captive power plants at BALCO and Jharsuguda commenced supply in November 2016 and facilitated 1,360,000 tonnes of coal in Q4 FY2017.

FY2017 reported a record aluminium production of 1.21 million tonnes (excluding trial run, production was 1.1 million tonnes). Alumina production was 24% higher than last year at 1.21 million tonnes after the commencement of the second stream of the refinery, indicating an overall buoyant year for Vedanta aluminium.