By IANS,
Bhubaneswar : National Aluminium Ltd. (NALCO) Monday said it has suspended operations at its only bauxite mine in Odisha’s Koraput district as its mining lease has expired.
The disruption will, howver, have no impact on the company’s refinery located nearby as it has a stock of more than 2.5 lakh tonnes of bauxite – the key raw material used to produce alumina, Ansuman Das, NALCO chairman and managing director, told IANS.
The Panchpatmali mine at Damanjodi, about 370 km from here, has a deposit of more than 310 million tonnes of bauxite reserve. The renewal of the lease was due Nov 17.
The company hopes to obtain a temporary permit from the authority to resume operations by the end of this month as lease renewal is a complex and time consuming process.
Bhubaneswar-headquartered NALCO is India’s third-largest aluminium maker. It had produced 50.03 lakh tonnes of bauxite, 16.87 lakh tonnes of alumina and 4.13 lakh tonnes of aluminium in 2011-2012 fiscal.