National Aluminium Company Limited is awaiting the centre`s clearance for the Rs 4 billion ambitious expansion programmes of its mines and alumina plant in Damanjodi and its smelter and captive power plant in Angul in Orissa.
The expansion envisages increasing its captive bauxite mine capacity from 4.8 million tones to 6.3 million tones. The production of alumina would be increased to 2.1 million tones and that of metal to 0.46 million tones. The captive generation of power will be up by 240MW to touch 1,200 MW.
The capacity of the Damanjodi mine had already been expanded in December 1998 and the Angul refinery had been expanded in December last. The alumina plant at Damanjodi is the tenth largest in the world and the cost of the alumina production is the lowest-$ 100 per tonne, against the global average of $200. Nalco earned Rs 4.09 billion net profit during 2001-02.
