By 121 News
Chandigarh October 14, 2021:- Aluminium Association of India (AAI) has sought immediate resumption of coal supplies for survival of the domestic aluminium industry. In a letter to Coal India Limited (CIL) , AAI on Thursday asked its Chairman to immediately resume coal supplies for the domestic aluminium industry citing alarming situation for Indian Aluminium industry due to critical Coal Shortage. The demand comes at a time when various power plants in the country are facing coal shortages.
In a letter AAI said that despite untiring efforts of MoC and CIL to support the industry, 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 ~40% of the production cost.
The letter further stated that 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 FSA (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 the Non-Power Sector is detrimental for the Aluminum industry and will jeopardize the sustainability as these continuous process based plants are not designed for adhoc shutdown 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.
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 two-three days, from the level as high as 15 days in April. And, plants are forced to operate at reduced power generation with a huge risk of closure with the threat of loss of huge employment and deterioration of MSMEs.
Moreover, the ongoing global aluminium shortage due to demand-supply mismatch is also adding to the woes for the industry.
To save the domestic industry, we earnestly request your kind intervention to normalise the precarious situation arisen due to stoppage of coal supplies and rakes through...immediate resumption of coal supply for aluminium industry CPPs (captive power plants) against secured linkages for economically viable and sustainable industry operations.
The letter further stated that the rakes allocation should be on priority for the highly power-intensive aluminium industry for optimum coal materialisation.
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