National Aluminium Company Limited will import 200,000 tonnes of coal to tide over the power crisis in Orissa which has led to the close down of 60 out of 960 smelting pots in its alumina smelter plant at Angul district.

Mahanadi Coalfields Limited which supplies coal to NALCO from mines located in Talcher of Angul district has been tripping on adequate supplies over last few weeks due to several reasons, including heavy rains, a dengue outbreak and strike by labourers. The plant requires about 18,000 tonne of coal per day to run the Captive Power Plant at the smelter plant in full capacity.

The power crisis came up when NALCO was forced to shut down one of the seven 110 MW units of its captive power plant due to shortage of coal. As against the requirement of 950 MW of power per day to run the smelter in full capacity, the production in power plant came down to about 640 MW. With the import of about 200 MW the total power available to the smelter remained at 840 MW.

Mr BL Bagra CMD of NALCO said that “To overcome the crisis, we reached out to the Ministry of Mines, Ministry of Coal and Railways authorities. The Coal Ministry advised MCL to arrange supply of coal from other mines located in Talcher and Ib valley areas. In turn, MCL has responded to open supplies from Hingula and Kanika mines. The movement from these mines has helped NALCO in salvaging the situation. The smelter is still operating with the help of state grid to the extent of receiving 100 MW of power regularly.”

(Sourced from www.indianexpress.com)