Odishatv Bureau
Bhubaneswar: Despite declining prices and adverse market conditions, aluminium giant NALCO, which posted 4.75 per cent jump in sales turnover at Rs 6,809 crore in 2012-13, has plans for ambitious new ventures, expansion and diversification programmes, a top company official said today.
 
Nalco is pursuing with Odisha government plans to obtain Pottangi Bauxite Mines, which has a mineable reserve of about 70 million tonnes, NALCO CMD Ansuman Das said at the 32nd annual general meeting of the Navaratna PSU here.
 
Subject to availability of Pottangi Mines, the company has plans to go for 5th stream Refinery based on medium pressure digestion technology at Damanjodi, he said.
 
The capacity of the stream will be approximately 1 million tonnes per annum and investment will be approximately Rs 5,000 crore.
 
The CMD said NALCO is planning to set up a Rs 5,500 crore greenfield Alumina Refinery in Gujarat with 1 MTPA capacity, for which Bauxite shall be supplied by Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation.
 
Listing the achievements of NALCO, the CMD said: "The company has posted a higher net sales turnover of Rs 6,809 crore, which is 4.75 per cent over Rs 6,500 crore achieved in the previous fiscal."
 
The rise in sales turnover was mostly attributed to higher production and sale of alumina, he said.
 
However, the net profit of the company was Rs 593 crore during the year as compared to Rs 850 crore in the previous fiscal, primarily due to high input costs, Das said.
 
NALCO achieved in last fiscal the highest-ever performance in Bauxite transportation of 54.19 lakh tonnes (LT), against the previous best of 50.03 LT in 2011-12, the CMD said.
 
At the same time, Nalco's Alumina Refinery has produced 18.02 lakh tonnes of alumina hydrate, which is an all-time high, against the previous best of 16.87 LT achieved in 2011-12, he said.
 
The Aluminium Smelter Plant at Angul achieved cast metal production of 4.03 LT against 4.13 LT achieved in 2011-12, Das said.
 
On sales, the Nalco CMD said the company achieved total chemical sale of 9.85 LT in 2012-13 compared to 8.43 LT achieved during 2011-12. This includes Calcined Alumina Export of 9.44 LT made during 2012-13 compared to 7.92 LT export during 2011-12.
 
The total metal sale during 2012-13 was 4.03 LT compared to 4.15 LT during 2011-12. Total metal sale consists of domestic sale of 2.59 LT and export of 1.44 LT.
 
Total metal sales during the year was lower due to production curtailment at Smelter Plant because of high input costs, he said.
 
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