OREANDA-NEWS. National Aluminium Company Ltd. (NALCO), the Navratna PSU under Ministry of Mines, Govt. of India, has reported excellent results in terms of sales turnover and foreign exchange earnings for the year 2012-13. During the year, the company achieved record sales turnover in excess of Rs.7200 crore and foreign exchange earnings of Rs.3400 crore.

Besides, in terms of physical performance, NALCO has also reported excellent results in bauxite and alumina production for the fiscal. Despite delay in renewal of mining lease, the company has achieved the highest-ever bauxite production of 54.19 lakh tonnes, against the previous best of 50.03 lakh tonnes achieved in previous fiscal. At the same time, NALCO’s Alumina Refinery has produced 18.02 lakh tonnes of alumina hydrate, which is an all-time high, against the previous best of 16.87 lakh tonnes achieved in 2011-12. However, during the year, the metal production of the company slumped marginally from 4.13 lakh tonnes to 4.03 lakh tonnes, due to planned shutdown of pot shells of the smelter.

According to Shri Ansuman Das, CMD, NALCO, besides coal shortage, the dwindling LME prices of metal, forced the company to cut down its production of metal to some extent. “It was not commercially viable to produce more metal using expensive imported coal,” Shri Das said. The net power generation by company’s Captive Power Plant was 6,076 million units.

Moreover, during the year, the company sold 983,191 tonnes of alumina hydrate, against 842,396 tonnes in 2011-12. Aluminium export by the company increased to 144,161 tonnes this year from 98,399 tonnes achieved in the last financial year.