Hindalco, the country’s largest aluminium producer, will invest “at least” Rs. 6,000 crore towards setting up of downstream facilities over the next four years.

The investments will be made at Mundra in Gujarat where it will set up an extrusion plant, while at the Sambalpur district in Odisha, it will set up a flat rolled products unit.

According to Satish Pai, MD, expansion of units for downstream products take time and will be done in a phased manner.

The Aditya Birla Group company had recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government for a Rs. 2,100-crore extrusion plant at Mundra with an annual capacity of 137,000 tonnes. It already has two extrusion plants at Renukoot (Uttar Pradesh) and Alupuram (Kerala) with a combined capacity of 60,000 tonnes per annum.

In Sambalpur, Hindalco will invest about Rs. 4,000 crore where its flat rolled products unit will have an annual capacity of 375,000 tonnes per annum.

“We have committed to set up downstream facilities in Gujarat and here in Odisha by investing over Rs. 6,000 crore over the next four years,” Pai told BusinessLine during an interview on the sidelines of the biennial Make-in-Odisha Conclave 2018. According to him, the company is in the process of investing Rs. 1,600 crore as capex during this fiscal.

While Rs. 700-800 crore will go towards the maintenance of its facilities, the rest will be deployed for brownfield expansion of the Utkal Alumina project. The Rs. 1,300-crore project includes ramping up of facility by 0.5 million tonnes to 2 million tonnes per annum.

The company will also look at coal mine auctions for linkages that is expected to happen by the end of this month.

“There is no quick fix for coal shortages. We are not getting linkages and are not importing (coal) yet. We have started putting some volumes, about 0.5 million tonne, for import at this stage. The company is waiting for coal mine auctions that will happen by the end of November,” said Pai.

Hindalco already operates three coal mines— Gare Palma IV/4 and IV/5 in Chhattisgarh and Kathautia in Jharkhand. The fourth at Dumri (Jharkhand) is under development. “Apart from coal shortages, furnace oil is hitting us in terms of input cost,” he said.

The acquisition of US-based aluminium sheet-maker Aleris Corp, at a reported cost of $2.6 billion, is expected to be completed by April-May next year, he added.

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