India: Anrak Aluminium may invest INR 12,000 Crore on Smelter Complex in Odisha

Anrak Aluminium, a joint venture of the Penna Group and Ras-Al-Khaimah Investment Authority (UAE), is mulling to pump in INR 12,000 crore on aluminium smelting complex in Odisha's Gopalpur. The chosen site would be closer to its refining unit in Visakhapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh where the company has already done an investment of INR 5600 crore.

The proposed smelter would have an annual capacity of 0.3 MnT. Anrak may also go for a captive power plant (CPP) to feed power to the smelter. Simultaneously, it is in talks with a number of private power producers in Odisha and Chhattisgarh to firm up power supply arrangements.

In order to ensure viability of its smelter operations, Anrak Aluminium has asked for a slew of incentives from the Odisha government- GST holiday/reimbursement for 10 years, tax exemption for input material during construction and waiver of cross subsidy and other levies. Anrak needs 1000 acres for the aluminium smelter and expects to commission the project by December 2021 subject to availability of bauxite and receipt of all clearances.

Anrak which had a tough time to arrange bauxite to feed its Andhra refinery, has also requested the Odisha government to work out bauxite supplies. It has urged the state government to arrange a bauxite resource of 150 MnT pa- the mine can be handed over to the state controlled Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) and bauxite sourced from this mine can be sold to Anrak. The company had installed an alumina refinery Makavarapalem (Andhra Pradesh) on promise of assured bauxite supplies from Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC). The deal mandating supply of 224 MnT of bauxite was signed during the reign of former chief minister Y Rajashekhar Reddy. But, the deal was scrapped in March last year by the N Chandrababu Naidu government which felt the deal was structured in a manner that would not benefit the local tribals.

Construction on the refinery project has been completed since 2013. But, the refinery failed to commission because of bauxite unavailability.