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Mr Ian Yovich, Managing Director, FFE, Australia (left), with Mr Rudy M Edge, Managing Director and CEO, FFE Minerals India Pvt Ltd, at a press conference in Chennai on Tuesday. — Shaju John

Chennai , Nov. 23

FFE Minerals India Pvt Ltd said on Tuesday that it bagged a Rs 358-crore order from the Vedanta group to supply technology and equipment for its alumina project in Orissa. The project is scheduled to begin production in the first quarter of 2006.

FFE Minerals will be the primary technology supplier for feed preparation, calcination and product handling at the Lanjigarh site in Orissa's Kalahandi district, according to Mr Rudy M. Edge, Managing Director and CEO.

FFE Minerals India Pvt Ltd is a fully-owned subsidiary of the F.L. Smidth Group of Denmark, which provides technology, equipment and plants to the cement and mineral processing industry.

Mr Edge told a press conference here on Tuesday that FFE Minerals India bagged the orders for five packages in a competitive tender process. The five packages are for bauxite crushing and downhill conveying, bauxite stockpiling and reclaiming, a bauxite grinding plant, an alumina calcination plant and alumina storage and rail loading. Vedanta Resources had tendered separately for each of these packages, which form part of its 1.4-million-tonnes-a-year alumina plant.

Of this, the alumina calcination package is the highest, valued at Rs 140 crore and the others at Rs 55-65 crore each, according to Mr Edge. He said that FFE Minerals would use equipment and systems from F.L. Smidth companies across the world.

The crushing technology will come from ABON Engineering, Australia and the long distance downhill pipe conveyor from CKIT, South Africa. The technology for bauxite stockpiling and reclaiming will come from MVT Material Handling, Germany and that for alumina handling, silo storage and loading into wagons from Moeller Material Handling of Germany.

Company officials said that of the Rs 358-crore order, nearly Rs 320 crore would be executed by FFE Minerals India and the rest sourced from the group's companies. With an order backlog of about Rs 400 crore, FFE Minerals India hopes to end this financial year (ending December 2004) with a turnover of Rs 200 crore, up from Rs 50 crore last year.

FFE Minerals will fabricate some of the equipment at KCP's plant at Tiruvottiyur, to the north of Chennai. (Till recently, the F.L. Smidth group had a joint venture in India with KCP, which went by the name of Fuller-KCP.)

The officials said that FFE Minerals bagged orders for the five packages, facing competition from companies like Larsen & Toubro, Outokumpu of Finland and TRF Ltd of the Tata group. Mr Edge said that FFE Minerals would bid for Indian Aluminium's expansion project.

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