Aluminium makers seek immediate resumption of coal supply

Aluminum manufacturers have approached the PMO requesting immediate resumption of coal supply, says a report in the media. Stating that coal stocks at plants have reached a critical stage, the Aluminium Association of India said the sector is on the brink and this could lead to massive job losses. The crisis could “adversely impact some 5,000 MSMEs (medium and small scale enterprises) in the downstream sector at a time they are coming out of the pandemic pangs and hit over 10 lakh jobs,” said The Times of India report.

Quoting the submission of the Aluminium Association of India to the PMO, the report said there is no alternative fuel to captive power as aluminum requires 15 times more energy than steel and 145 times more than cement.

In the wake of the acute shortage of coal in power plants, the government in August had cut supply to aluminum plants from Coal India by half and further reduced it to just 10%.

The coal shortage is particularly concerning considering the fact the industry has invested Rs 1.4 lakh crore to double the domestic capacity to over 4 million tonne per annum.

“Any power failure of more than two hours would result in the shutdown of plants for at least six months and render heavy losses, restart expenses and prolonged metal impurity. The industry invested Rs 50,000 crore for setting up 9.4 GW CPPs which is 6% of the country’s total demand and 123% of the total energy traded on the Indian Energy Exchange (7.6 GW in 2021). Therefore, technically it is not feasible to get this massive power from the national grid or any other alternate source,” the report quoted the association as saying.