Hindalco plans to raise capacity

Hyderabad: Hindalco Industries Ltd is poised to expand its brownfield plants while creating new greenfield projects aimed at taking the overall aluminium generation capacity to about 1.5-1.6 million tonnes per annum.

This would involve a capital expenditure of about $7-7.5 billion (about Rs 25,000-26,000 crore) by 2011 and compliment the company’s inorganic growth which has come through some extremely strategic acquisitions, according to Mr D. Bhattacharya, Managing Director of Hindalco Industries Ltd.

Automotive manufacture


Addressing a press conference here today, Mr Bhattacharya said the acquisitions have helped the company get into value-added products and Novalis would help the company target areas of automotive manufacture.

“Novalis, for instance, has fusion technology that helps strengthen aluminium while also helping in bringing about flexibility in design. The company already works with some of the largest automotive manufacturers such as BMW and we expect to do similar things with other value added downstream projects,” he explained.

“The per capita consumption of aluminium in India is abysmally low and yet we are the fifth largest consumer in the world. The industry is growing at the rate of about 10-12 per cent and this trend would continue. As per estimates, the consumption is set to go up from about 1.5 kg to 8-10 kg,” he said.

New areas in focus


The aluminium usage is currently limited to industrial usage and electrical wires and gradually expanding to new areas such as automotives, two wheelers, aircraft, rail systems, and transport systems. This is poised to fuel the growth of downstream business, he said.

Asked about its copper business, Mr Bhattacharya said the company had shut down one of its smelters as there is lack of copper concentrate. However, the company expects to reopen this in 2009 once the copper supplies go up.