New Delhi : Mining conglomerate Vedanta on Monday said that its production of zinc, copper and aluminium was affected during the July-September quarter due to reasons such as power outages, technical snags among others.
Despite the hurdles, the firm led by billionaire Anil Agrawal posted a record aluminium production of 2.96 lakh tonnes during the September quarter and saw its power sales rise year-on-year (y-o-y) helped by commissioning of additional units at TSPL and BALCO over the last year.
The company said copper production from Tuticorin smelter was 97,000 tonnes, marginally lower q-o-q. “During the quarter, production was affected by an unplanned outage for ten days due to a boiler leakage at the smelter,” it added. In the aluminium segment, Vedanta said commissioning of pots at first line of the 1.25 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) Jharsuguda-II aluminium smelter was completed at the end of July 2016.
“However, it was impacted by a power outage in early August, following which 168 pots were taken out of production. The impacted pots are currently being rectified, and 10 pots have re-started in early October 2016,” it added.
Similarly its Balco facility too faced issues during the quarter.
“BALCO-II smelter was commissioned, with all 336 pots operational in August. However, there was a technical issue in early September, due to which 167 pots were taken out of production. Rectification work is in progress and these pots are expected to be re-started by Q4 2016-17,” Vedanta said, reports PTI.
In Zinc, the firm’s mines metal production increased primarily due to significantly higher production at Rampura Agucha open cast mine compared to Q1, when there was high waste excavation, in accordance with the waste-ore sequence.
