Vedanta setting up $2.1 bn smelter in Orissa

Plant to be set-up with an initial aluminium smelting capacity of 5 lakh tpa.

Vedanta Resources Plc is setting up a $2.1-billion (over Rs 9,500 crore) greenfield aluminium smelter with a capacity of 5 lakh tonnes per annum (tpa) in Jharsuguda, Orissa.

On completion, the project will help increase Vedanta's total aluminium smelting capacity to 9 lakh tpa and turn the company into one of the largest integrated producers of aluminium in the world.

The UK-based company said the Jharsuguda project would use the project framework and technology deployed for the Korba (Chhattisgarh) smelter plant that was successfully commissioned recently.

The Jharsuguda project will be implemented in two phases of 250,000 tpa each. The first phase is expected to be completed in the second half of 2009 and the second by the end of 2010.

The investment will be funded through a combination of internal resources and external financing. The company had launched a $500-million maiden debt issue in December 2004 in a global dollar bond offering that had been oversubscribed.