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Amit Mitra

DAMANJODI (Orissa), April 18

THE Union Minister for Coal and Mines, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, has made it clear that the Government will continue to maintain its majority shareholding in National Aluminium Co (Nalco).

Talking to presspersons after inaugurating the Rs 1,544-crore third stream expansion of Nalco refinery, Mr Paswan said the process of disinvestment of another 30 per cent of Nalco's share was on and would be finalised in four to five months. Out of the 30 per cent, 20 per cent will be offloaded in foreign stock exchanges and the remaining in the domestic market, he said.

Replying to a question, the Minister said that the offer price had not yet been finalised, but as the international aluminium market was picking up, the premium would be substantial. "Right now, the Nalco share price has touched Rs 90 and it is expected to cross Rs 100 soon," he added.

Mr Paswan said Nalco was also considering strategic alliances with foreign companies to take up expansion projects. For example, the Japanese company, Mitsui, had shown interest in forming a joint venture with Nalco for setting up a plant to manufacture special grade alumina, while a French company planned to tie up for setting up an aluminium plant in Orissa.

The Minister said he had called for a meeting of all State Mines Ministers in New Delhi on May 1 to discuss a wide variety of issues related to mining, including streamlining of certain procedures, forging better co-ordination between the Centre and the State governments for taking up mining activities and environmental issues.

With the expansion project, the production capacity of Nalco has increased from 8 lakh tones to 15.75 lakh tonnes, while the capacity of its bauxite mines, which supply ore to the refinery, has been doubled to 48 lakh tonnes in December 1999.

The brownfield expansion of the alumina complex involved modernisation and debottlenecking of the existing two streams of four lakh tonnes per annum each. With the expansion, Nalco is expected to become a major player in the international market, with nearly one million tonnes of alumina being available as exportable surplus per annum.

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