Taking advantage of a bullish metal market, Nalco pumped out more tonnage of alumina and aluminium during the first quarter of the current fiscal to June 30, 2008.
During the quarter, Nalco sold 222,883 tonne of alumina and 84,980 tonne of aluminium compared with 207,796 tonne of alumina and 77,195 tonne of aluminium during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
Nalco’s production during the quarter, however, was badly hit by the coal crisis it faced during June. The company’s metal production stood at 86,979 tonne during the quarter as against 88,550 tonne during the corresponding period of 2007-08.
The aluminium price is hovering around $3350 per tonne at the London Metal Exhange due to output cuts in China. Nalco squared up three alumina sales in the first quarter at $403.09, $ 427.77 and 425 a tonne.
The company produced 1,024,363 tonne of bauxite comapred with 1,070,084 tonne in the same period last fiscal. Similarly, generation from its captive plant slipped to 1400 MU during the period as against 1449 MU the previous year. Alumina production, however, was up at 392,900 tonne compared with 387,800 tonne during the year-ago period.
Nalco, which faced coal crisis owing to truckers’ strike in Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd for nearly one month, was forced to shut down two its eight units at the 960mw captive plant at Angul.