NALCO faces imminent coal crisis, not much stock left

The National Aluminium Company (NALCO) at Angul in Odisha is apparently grappling with an imminent coal crisis with a reported stock of coal for only five days being left with the PSU.

As per reports, the Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), a subsidiary of the Coal India Limited, has reduced its supply of coal to NALCO. The MCL is supplying 8,000 MT of coal to the company every day in place of an agreed 18,000 –20,000 MT per day.

The NALCO authorities are reportedly running short of coal and using their stockpile to manage till now. However, the stock of coal with NALCO has been depleting and it has only 1 lakh MT remaining in its yard, which will be finished in five days of time.

On the other hand, the GRIDCO has also denied supplying electricity to NALCO adding up to the pressure to run the smelter plant.

Speaking to OTV, President of NALCO S&P Complex Officer’s Association, Prasanna Kumar Mallik said, “The decision by the MCL management to reduce the daily quota of coal has hit the NLACO hard. If the coal supply is not normalised immediately, we will have to shut down the smelter plant.”

President of Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Brahmananda Mishra told OTV, “The NALCO has already shut down one unit. Power is vital to function for an aluminium plant. If the plant shuts down, the downstream MSME and small industries will also incur huge losses.”

Meanwhile, the NALCO authorities have requested the Centre to intervene and normalise the coal supply.

The MCL authorities could not be reached to comment in this connection.