The National Aluminium Company (Nalco) is awaiting the Central approval to get the Potangi bauxite mines for the expansion of its Damanjodi alumina refinery in Koraput district.
“We have planned to add up one million tonne per annum (mtpa) at the Damanjodi project. Once we get the Potangi mines, we would be able to start the plant,” said Nalco CMD Ansuman Das, who met the Union Secretaries of Steel and Mines here on Monday.
The Potangi bauxite mine has mineable reserve of about 70 million tonnes, sources said. The company has plans to go for the fifth stream refinery based on medium pressure digestion technology. The capacity of the stream will be approximately one mtpa and investment would be around Rs 5,000 crore, said Das.
With this, the capacity of the Damanjodi refinery project would increase to 3.3 mtpa. Notably, the company has already obtained the Chief Minister-headed High level Clearance Authority (HlCA) to set up a new 0.5-mtpa aluminium smelter and a 1,260-MW captive power plant at a cost of Rs 16,450 crore at Kepse in Sundargarh district.
The Nalco CMD also expected that the lease of the Panchabatmali bauxite mines would be renewed within two months. The lease period would expire in November this year. The Nalco is also hopeful that the Utkal-E coal block, which has a reserve of about 67.49 million tonnes, would be operational by December 2014 at an estimated cost of Rs 338 crore.