Goyal Wants His Ministry-Administered NALCO To Stop Exporting Alumina
Goyal criticised NALCO for not selling alumina to domestic aluminum producers.
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India is considering preventing state-owned National Aluminium Company Ltd. from exporting alumina, with an aim to boost the availability of the raw material for domestic aluminium producers. Responding to a BloombergQuint query on whether NALCO will stop exporting alumina altogether, Mines Minister Piyush Goyal said he has “left it to the public to help them make a decision on this.”
Goyal’s comment followed his criticism of how NALCO is exporting alumina – the raw material used in the manufacture of aluminium – even as the domestic industry was importing it.
NALCO has been exporting about 1 million tonnes of alumina, and the country is importing about 1.3 million tonnes of alumina for other (domestic) aluminium producers.Piyush Goyal, Minister of Mines at a press conference in Delhi
Goyal pulled up NALCO for not selling alumina to domestic aluminium producers for fear of harbouring competition for the company’s aluminium manufacturing business.
NALCO had justified its model of exporting alumina to Iran and then ‘probably importing’ the finished aluminium citing expensive power and low coal availability. Goyal said.
“Some of these things are beyond my understanding, how governments could think,” Goyal added.
The NALCO management could not be immediately reached for a comment.