Vedanta Aluminium confirms shutdown of Lanjigarh power plant

The Vedanta Aluminium Ltd. (VAL), which will soon close down its refinery at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district, has also decided to discontinue operation of its 75 mw captive power plant there.

The VAL on Wednesday informed this to the local executive engineer of the power distribution company, WESCO, the reason being to buy electricity from the public grid for keeping some of the highly sensitive machineries of the refinery and the captive unit alive. "Since the refinery is going to close down, there is no need for keeping the power plant running. All that we need 8 to 10 mw of uninterrupted power for idle running of the systems of the whole project. Hence, we have approached the WESCO," said a Vedanta functionary.

The letter said the refinery had been "facing great difficulties for the last two months in maintaining supply of our main raw material, Bauxite. Hence, we are forced to close the plant to avoid further damage to various systems of the plant'. The VAL had earlier intimated the state government about its plan to close down the refinery from 5th December. "The plant presently has bauxite to last only for two to three days. I doubt whether the refinery can run till the first week of December. We may close the factory much before 5th December," the VAL official said. Anil Agarwal's VAL has thus far invested more than Rs 50,000 crore for setting up the integrated alumina and aluminium complex, which includes the one mtpa refinery at Lanjigarh due for expansion to 6 mtpa capacity 70 percent work on which has already been completed, 1.75 mtpa capacity aluminium smelter, 1215 mw captive power plant and 2400 mw independent power plant, all at Jharsuguda.