India’s Anrak Aluminium is optimistic of securing government approval to mine bauxite in three to four months, a company official has said, possibly ending a three-year wait.
“We are hopeful of getting approval in three to four months,” Hariharan Mahadevan, president of projects at Anrak, told an industry conference in Singapore.
The mine, located in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, will have an annual capacity to produce 1.5mt (million tonnes) of bauxite, used to make alumina which then goes into producing aluminium.
Its alumina refinery should be in place by April 2015, while the second phase will include a smelter, Mahadevan said. Anrak is a joint venture between Penna group of industries and Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority.
Vedanta Aluminium, which has been struggling to source sufficient bauxite to feed its 1mt per year alumina refinery in Odisha state, is also hopeful of an improvement in the supply of bauxite.
Billionaire Anil Agarwal, the founder of London-listed Vedanta Resources that controls Vedanta Aluminium, has told reporters that the government of Odisha has assured him of adequate supplies in the next three to four months.