Vedanta Aluminium Ltd closed its refinery at Lanjigarh temporarily on Saturday without any stock of bauxite to run the plant. "We closed the refinery as we didn't get any alternative," Chief Operating Officer of the company Mukesh Kumar said.
The COO also said the refinery will be closed till its bauxite is obtained. The top officials of the company had informed about the closing of the Rs 4,500 crore company three days back as the production rate of the aluminum company had gone down to 30 to 35 per cent in last ten days.
The company on Wednesday, in a letter to the authorities of Wesco, had requested to supply of 8-10 MW of electricity to the refinery as the captive power plant would too be closed in a few days. To continue alumina production, the refinery needs 10,000 tonnes of bauxite. The company served a notice to the State's Labour Department about the problem on September 6 and informed that it would shut down the plant temporarily from December 5.
The company officials had met the Chief Minister and demanded alternative mines to run their refinery. On the other hand, Minister of Mines RK Singh said the State Government was reviewing the demands of the company. The company would bring 90,000 tonnes of bauxite from the Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation to run the plant, but that would probably reach the plant site in October last week. Hence, the company took the decision to close the plant till the time of the arrival of bauxite, sources said.
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