Vedanta Aluminium, India’s largest aluminium producer, reported a more than twofold rise in net profit for the September quarter, supported by stronger realisations, improved operating efficiency and record production. Net profit attributable to owners increased to ₹5,167 crore from ₹2,373 crore in the same quarter last year, according to a report by The Hindu BusinessLine.
The company’s revenue rose 41 per cent year-on-year to ₹22,066 crore from ₹15,670 crore. EBITDA increased 83 per cent to ₹10,192 crore during the quarter. The results come as aluminium producers manage raw-material availability, energy requirements and global price uncertainty across a supply chain that feeds manufacturing and construction-related industries.
Vedanta Aluminium produced a record 6.49 lakh tonne of aluminium during the quarter, a 5 per cent increase from the same period last year. Value-added production reached 4.32 lakh tonne, up 31 per cent year-on-year, while alumina production rose 37 per cent to 8.95 lakh tonne.
The company is targeting total aluminium production of 26 lakh tonne during the current financial year. During the quarter, the second zone of the 4.35 lakh tonne-per-annum expansion at Bharat Aluminium Company, or Balco, was operationalised. Vedanta Aluminium also obtained Consent to Operate for the Sijimali Bauxite Block in Odisha.
Rajesh Kumar, Whole-Time Director and CEO of Vedanta Aluminium, told The Hindu BusinessLine that the company was prioritising operational efficiency and improving captive sourcing of raw materials rather than relying only on aluminium prices. He said the company had tied up 80 per cent of the bauxite requirement for one million tonne of alumina production.
Domestic sourcing currently accounts for 40 per cent of the company’s bauxite requirement, with the balance being imported. Kumar said domestic bauxite was cheaper by $15-20 a tonne and that the company aimed to increase domestic sourcing to 60 per cent in the third quarter and to 75-80 per cent by the end of the financial year.
The company expects domestic bauxite availability to rise once the Sijimali mines become operational in Odisha. Its Kuraloi coal block in Jharsuguda district is expected to become operational during the current quarter, while the Ghogarpalli coal block in Sundargarh district is scheduled to begin production in the next quarter.
Vedanta Aluminium currently receives 2.5 million tonne of coal from its captive mines, with the remainder supplied through coal linkages at fixed cost, according to Kumar. He said the company did not face a coal shortage during the monsoon because it had built inventory and kept the captive Jamkhani coal mine in reserve for the period. The company’s next milestones are the planned commissioning of the two Odisha coal blocks and the targeted increase in domestic bauxite sourcing.
