Nalco includes Rs 200cr lime unit in Damajodi expansion

The public sector National Aluminium Company (Nalco) proposes to set up a Rs 200 crore lime plant near its alumina refinery at Damanjodi in Koraput district.

The plant will to produce 100 to 200 tonnes of lime per day for captive consumption of the refinery.

With not sufficient reserve of lime stone available in Orissa, the company intends to bring lime stone to feed the plant from Katni in Rajasthan.

The company is in talks with Rajasthan Mineral Corporation to import about 6,000 tonnes or two rakes of lime stone per month", C.R. Pradhan, chairman and managing director, Nalco, told Business Standard.

He said the requirement of lime, which is a key input for making of alumina at the company's Damanjodi refinery, is expected to double following the expansion of the unit.

The ongoing expansion at Damanjodi aims to take the bauxite mining capacity from 4.8 million tonnes to 6.3 million tonnes and alumina capacity from 15.75 lakh tonnes to 21 lakh tonnes.

This is the second major backward integration project of the company announced in last couple months in a bid to secure steady supply of key inputs at competitive price.

The company last month had invited bids from private chemical industries for setting up 50,000 tonnes per annum caustic soda plant which will function as an ancillary to the company's alumina refinery at Damanjodi.

The cost of the project is estimated at about Rs 200 crore.

Nalco consumes about 1,20,000 tonnes of caustic soda, which is used for making of alumina, per annum .

The chemical is either imported or procured from the west coast mostly Gujarat.

But due to uncertainty in supply, the company is often forced to face worrying times with few days' stock in hand.

To avoid such crunch situations, the company board had decided to source part of its requirement from an ancillary firmly tied up to its alumina refinery.

Lurgi of Germany, which conducted a feasibility study for such a project, had opined that a caustic soda project in the vicinity of the refinery will be viable.

The company even considers taking up a stake in the project to exercise control over supply and quality of the material, a top official of the company said.