Even while Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation Ltd (GMDC) awaits a partner for its alumina project in Kutch, it has decided to invite financial offers from more companies for the project. It may be mentioned here that the state run mining major had shortlisted four companies for the project in January this year.
GMDC expects to get better price-proposition for the project by bringing in companies other than already shortlisted firms. Giving updates about the proposed Rs 14,000 crore alumina plant in Kutchh, V S Gadhvi, managing director, GMDC, said, "We are now in a process of inviting financial offers from the companies. We may invite these offers from shortlisted as well as non-shortlisted companies. We believe that most of the companies, which had filed the expression of interests (EOI) for the project earlier, are capable enough to partner with us for the project."
The public sector mining major would invite the financial offers by June 15, 2011. The final decision will be taken after consulting the state cabinet. Last year, GMDC had received EOIs from nine companies including Hindalco - an Aditya Birla group company, Jaiprakash Associates, JSW Aluminium, NALCO, Gujarat Foils, Aluchem (USA), Dubai Aluminium, Adani Group and Jindal Steel and Power. Of these four were short-listed after the evaluation of the expression of interests (EOIs). The company has decided to invite financial offers not only from the shortlisted firms, but also from some of the leftouts.
"It is not that the shortlisted companies failed to meet our criteria, but we feel that there is a scope for better price-proposition by inviting some more companies too. Few companies have no experience in this domain and some do not even have an experience of working in Gujarat. So we may not invite all the nine companies, but about 6-7 companies may be invited with financial offers," said Gadhvi.
Sources from Adani Group informed that the group was not in a race for the alumina plant. "We have no interests in alumina. There is no possibility of Adani group participating in the bidding or sending any financial offer for the project. Nothing as such has been discussed at the top level," informed a top official from Adani Group. The state-run mining major plans to set up a one-million tonne alumina refinery and 500,000-tonne aluminium smelter in Kutch. The plant would also require a power plant to be set up at the site.
