Aluminium Association of India have apprised India’s coal ministry of alarming situation for Indian Aluminium industry due to critical Coal Shortage and urgency for immediate resumption of coal supplies for survival of domestic industry. Aluminium Association of India in a letter wrote “The current acute coal crunch due to various factors which has created an immensely precarious situation, majorly for the highly power intensive industries like Aluminium wherein coal accounts for about 40% of the production cost.”

Aluminium Association of India wrote “Aluminium smelting requires uninterrupted quality power supply for production which can be met only through in house CPPs which operate 24/7 and 365 days, and have signed Fuel Supply Agreement with CIL and its subsidiaries for assured long term coal supply. The recent decisions for stoppage of secured coal supplies and rakes for Non-Power Sector is detrimental for Aluminum industry and will jeopardize the sustainability as these continuous process based plants are not designed for adhoc shut down and start of operations. Any power outage/ failure (2 hours or more) results in freezing of molten Aluminium in the pots which will lead to shutting down of plant for at least 6 months rendering heavy losses and restart expenses, and once restarted will take almost a year to get desired metal purity.”

It said “The entire industry has been brought to a standstill and left with no time to devise any mitigation plan to continue sustainable operations. The coal stocks of operational plants have depleted to alarmingly low critical stocks of 2-3 days, from the level as high as 15 days in the month of April, 21, and plants are forced to operate at reduced power generation with huge risk of closure with threat of loss of huge employment and deterioration of MSMEs. Moreover, the ongoing global Aluminium shortage due to supply demand mismatch is also adding to the woes for industry with the current coal situation in India.”

In view of the above to save the domestic industry, we earnestly request your kind intervention to normalize the precarious situation arisen due to stoppage of coal supplies and rakes through the following support:

1) Immediate resumption of coal supply for Aluminium industry CPPs against secured linkages for economically viable and sustainable industry operations.

2) Rakes allocation on priority for highly power intensive Aluminium industry for optimum coal materialization.

3) Expediting coal linkage auctions / exclusive e-auctions for CPP sub-sector through Rail mode at the earliest to provide some relief for the consumers

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