Bhubaneswar : With the aluminium major Nalco facing acute shortage of coal, Odisha government Wednesday said it would hold a discussion with Mahanadi Coalfields Limited to resolve the dry fuel crisis.
Odisha’s Steel and Mines Minister Prafulla Kumar Malliack said: “I will hold discussions with the authorities of Nalco and also the MCL and ensure that the aluminium major’s production is not affected due to shortage of coal.”
While the Nalco authorities are tight lipped over the crisis as both the mines and coal ministries are handled by one Union Minister, several workers union of Nalco have raised concern over the coal crisis in its smelter plant at Angul. Former Nalco CMD, T K Chand said: “The MCL was supposed to provide 5.6 million tons of coal per annum to Nalco. However, the MCL has not been able to supply the agreed amount of coal. Shortage of coal will affect the productivity of Nalco and also its profitability.”
Meanwhile, the workers unions pointed out that there is only 1.55 lakh metric ton of coal in the Nalco’s stock against the normal reserve of 5 lakh metric ton. The company required around 19,000 metric ton of coal every day to run its captive power plant and also smelter at Angul.
The recent driver’s strike has also adversely affected coal supply to the company, Nirmal Chandra Satpathy, a worker union leader at Nalco’s smelter plant in Angul, said adding that the existing coal stock will be consumed in just five to six days.
According to an agreement between the Nalco and the MCL valid till March, 2023, the latter is bound to supply 47.16 lakh metric ton linkage coal and 9 lakh metric ton of bridge linkage coal annually.
However, MCL could supply only 39 lakh mt linkage coal and 3 lakh mt bridge linkage coal in 2021-22. <br> Inadequate supply of coal to Nalco forced the aluminium major to purchase 200 MW of power from the state grid every day between July, 2021 to March, 2022.
Source: PTI
