Hindalco to set up smelter

The company signs MoU with Madhya Pradesh govt for Rs 7,700 crore.

Hindalco Industries, the flagship unit of the Aditya Birla group, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Madhya Pradesh government to set up a Rs 7,700 crore greenfield aluminium smelter in the state's Siddhi district.

The greenfield project includes a 325,000 tonne per annum aluminium smelter, a 750 mw captive power plant and a jointly owned captive coal mine.

The company will source the alumina required for the smelter from Utkal Alumina, the company's greenfiled project in Orissa, in a joint venture with Alcan, Canada.

The new 3.25 lakh smelter in MP will need about 6.40 lakh tonne of alumina. Utkal Alumina is slated to produce 1.5 million tonne of alumina.

The pact was signed by the state's principal secretary O P Rawat and Hindalco's managing director D Bhattacharya.

"The pact marks yet an another milestone in our goal of making Hindalco a non-ferrous metals powerhouse. In aluminium, our chairman, Kumar Mangalam Birla's vision is to be among the top 10 global players. This new greenfield aluminium, project is a forward move in this regard," said Bhattacharya.

The project will be financed through internal accruals and debt and is expected to go on stream in a four years.

The Aditya Birla group has already invested Rs 6,000 crore in MP at its VSF and cement plants. The aluminium smelter in Siddhi is expected to create about 5,000 new jobs and generate another 12,000 jobs indirectly.

In a related development, the company has changed the location of its Jharkhand project from Rajbag to Latehar, said Bhattacharya.

Moreover, the company has started construction of its Utkal project in Orissa and the delivery of equipment will start soon. The project should be over in other 48 months, he added.

For the captive power plant, the company will source coal from the mines it jointly owns with Essar Power. Earlier this year, the two had teamed up to develop a captive coal mine at Mahan in MP.

The mine has proven reserves of 150 million tonne of coal. Essar Power is investing Rs 4,000 crore for a 1,000 mw power project in the state.

Aditya Birla Group's operations in MP began in 1948 with the viscose staple fibre plant in Ujjain. In 1972, its rayon grade caustic soda unit came up.

"When our Group forayed into cement in the 1980's, the late Aditya Birla chose Jawad in this state as its location," said Bhattacharya.

The company has already filed applications for land and related infrastructure to get the project going.