Hindalco to resume on-hold projects, plans for INR 2700 crore investment

The Aditya Birla Group subsidiary, Hindalco Industries intends to commence all the projects there that were put on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic and also plans to invest around INR 2700 crore in the current fiscal against ₹1,600 crore in FY’21.

The world’s largest aluminium rolling company had slashed the proposed Capex from INR 2,500 crore in June’20 due to Covid-19 and ceased the downstream project in Western Odisha’s Hirakud. The organization also reduced the pace on the 34,000-tonne aluminium extrusion plant at Silvassa with an investment of INR 730 crore.

Satish Pai, Managing Director, Hindalco, said: “The demand for aluminium has surpassed the pre-Covid levels and the company is confident that revival in demand will sustain in coming days despite the concern of the third wave of Covid.”

“Unlike last year, the company has not seen an exodus of the workforce this time around and plants were running to the optimal level”, he said.

“The biggest challenge now is to get the entire workforce vaccinated as early as possible as stopping the exodus.”

Pai said: “Despite the local Covid restrictions, aluminium demand has been strong from packaging, building and construction while sales to the automobile sector have slowed down since April.”

“We expect aluminium prices to remain firm as the supply side is constrained by shut down of inefficient plants in China due to its ESG commitments,” he added.

“The increase in the spread between aluminium and scrap prices has pushed up scrap imports into India though aluminium imports have been at reasonable levels.”

“The government needs to soon fix the remission rate at 5% for the Aluminium sector under RoDTEP (Remission of Duties or Taxes on Export Products) scheme so that Indian exports remain competitive in global markets, Pai concluded.