Vedanta to shut down Lanjigarh refinery from today

Bhubaneswar: Vedanta group has decided to shut down its one million tonne alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Odisha’s Kalahandi district from today due to severe scarcity of bauxite, a senior company official said.

“We are forced to close down Lanjigarh refinery from tomorrow due to dwindling stocks of bauxite. Despite concerted efforts over the past three months for sustainable supplies of bauxite we have been unable to find any solution,” CEO of Vedanta Aluminium Mukesh Kumar told PTI.

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“For the last three days, we have run the unit at around 20 percent of the capacity incurring heavy loss and from tomorrow we have to close down the unit due to lack of raw material. We have no other option now,” he said.

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The mining conglomerate, which runs the alumina refinery of Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL), had given a closure notice to Odisha government three months ago about closing operations from December 5 citing severe shortage of bauxite as the main reason for the shutdown.

Stating that 10,000-11,000 tonnes of bauxite was required per day for normal functioning of the refinery, Kumar said the company explored several sources outside Odisha, but failed to secure more than 3,000 tonnes daily. VAL, in its closure notice to Odisha’s labour and industries department served on September 5, had said that running the alumina refinery was no longer sustainable “unless Odisha government finds a solution for supply of bauxite”.

PTI