Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAL) has commissioned its railway siding at its smelter unit at Jharsuguda at an investment of Rs 70 crore.
The 19-km railway link project, connecting VAL’s smelter unit with the main line became operational on Sunday after Kishore Mohanty, speaker of Orissa assembly flagged off the first rake from the company site.
The railway siding will help us to stabilise operations and also enable the company to make its business more competitive, said Pankaj Khanna, chief operating officer, VAL.
The company’s railway siding has been equipped with track hopper system, an improvement over the conventional wagon tippler system, to reduce the time interval between loading and unloading.
The railway siding is expected to streamline traffic within and outside VAL’s plant premises and it also aims to reduce the company’s cost by increasing efficiency.
The company plans to maximise the inward and outward movement through the railway link.
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Asked if the prevailing economic crisis would impact VAL’s operations, Khanna said, “In the current scenario, it is a challenge for the country’s aluminium industry as aluminum prices have crashed due to slump in demand in the wake of the economic slowdown. However, VAL has no plans to cut production of aluminium at this stage and we expect to achieve our production targets on schedule.”
According to JP Nayak, general manager (pot line) of VAL, 50 per cent of the company’s first pot line is operational as 152 out of 304 units are now running at the company’s smelter plant.
The average production of aluminium now stands at 360 tonnes per day and the production is expected to go up to around 720 tonnes per day by March next year as the remaining 152 pots are scheduled to be operational by then, he said.
The company’s smelter plant is fed by the captive power plant (CPP) and three units (3x135 MW) of the CPP are now on steam.
The fourth unit of the CPP is expected to be operational by January next year and fifth unit by March next year, with the capacity of both these units being 135 MW each.
Six more pot lines of VAL and four units (4X135 MW) of the CPP are expected to be commissioned in the second phase of the company’s smelter operations which is scheduled for completion by 2011-12.