Opening of tender by state owned Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) for sale of 92,174 tonnes of bauxite has injected hope to Vedanta’s alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district that is staring at possible shutdown on bauxite crunch.
“We will participate in the bid of GMDC for sale of 92000 tonnes of bauxite by submitting the tender papers on October 4, the last date of participation”, said a top official of Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL), a unit of London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc.
GMDC has set a basic floor price of Rs 800 per tonne for sale of bauxite upto 50000 tonnes and Rs 750 per tonne above 50000 tonnes.
It may be noted, the company is struggling to keep its one million tonne refinery operations afloat with the plant running at barely 50 per cent capacity amid deepening uncertainties in bauxite availability. “By any means we have to run the refinery till December 5. Sourcing 92000 tonnes of bauxite from the Guajrat PSU will serve the purpose for ten days at least,” added the official.
To run the one million tonne per annum (mtpa) refinery plant at full steam, VAL needs 300,000 tonnes of bauxite every month.