National Aluminium Company (Nalco), a navratna company under the Union ministry of mines is looking to rope in one or two strategic investors for its proposed aluminium smelter plant in Indonesia.
The aluminium major will form a fully owned subsidiary for its Indonesian project and later hive off its stake to interested firms while retaining the majority stake. Once the project reaches the execution stage, Nalco plans to list the entity at the stock exchanges in Jakarta, Hong Kong and Singapore.
“Presently, Pt Antam, a mining firm owned by the Government of Indonesia has evinced interest to pick up 15-20 per cent stake in our proposed smelter project in Indonesia. We are looking to bring in one or two more strategic investors for this project but Nalco will hold the majority stake. Once the project reaches the commissioning stage, we will list it at the stock exchanges of Jakarta, Hong Kong and Singapore,” said B L Bagra, chairman and managing director, Nalco.
Nalco had proposed to set up a 0.5 million tonne per annum (mtpa) smelter plant and a 1250 MW CPP in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Nalco which is diversifying into the non-ferrous metals business is looking to form separate subsidiaries for its ventures in energy, copper, uranium and titanium.
“We have plans to form subsidiaries for our proposed ventures in sectors like energy, copper and uranium but it has not been decided on the number of subsidiaries that we intend to form. Nalco has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Hindustan Copper Ltd and Indian Rare Earths Ltd for different diversification projects,” Bagra said.
Nalco which had shut 60 pots at its smelter complex at Angul aims to restart operations of these pots before the end of October. The company had shut down 60 pots in the wake of power crisis triggered by dwindling coal stock.
“Once we build up coal stock, we'll be starting the operations of the pots which is set to happen before the end of October. Nalco used to purchase 300 MW of power from the state grid during the coal crisis but it has now come down to less than 50 MW,” he said.
