| The accelerating global transition to clean technologies will be metal-intensive, increasing the demand for sustainable ‘green metals’ like aluminium. Aluminium is a strategic metal that finds critical applications across all industries, serving as the lifeblood of our day-to-day lives, while also enabling our vision of a sustainable future.
Rahul Sharma,
CEO,
Vedanta Limited – Aluminium Business
Aluminium’s unique properties, such as a high strength-to-weight ratio, corrosion-resistance, infinite recyclability, malleability and conductivity, make it the metal of choice for diverse applications in critical industries like aerospace, defence, automotive, infrastructure, electrical, and packaging, as well as sunrise sectors like high-tech manufacturing, renewable energy, electric vehicles, and many more. This has earned aluminium the moniker ‘metal of the future’.
Owing to its myriad applications, the aluminium industry is already the fastest growing non-ferrous metal industry in the world today. India’s aluminium demand is expected to more than double to approximately 10 million tonnes by 2030, driven by a surge in the sector. Globally, there are about 3,000 applications of aluminium across various industries, whereas India has explored about 300. Herein lies the potential for value-addition in India.
2022, a year of many milestones
Rahul Sharma, CEO, Vedanta Limited – Aluminium Business
An employee at the cast house.
Vedanta Aluminium, one of the world’s top and India’s largest producers of aluminium, is well-resourced to cater to this emerging demand. With a capacity of 2.3 million tonnes per year, we produce one of the largest ranges of aluminium products, supplying them to over 50 countries. We ended FY22 by producing 2.27 million tonnes of aluminium, our historical high!
We launched India’s first green aluminium, branded ‘Restora’, to cater to the emerging demand for low-carbon materials worldwide, driven by climate consciousness and the need to decarbonise operations. With both low-carbon and ultra-low carbon options, our Restora product line stands testimony to our vision to cater to the emerging needs of the market while making good on our strong commitment to decarbonise our operations.
We also set the ball rolling on the Vedanta Aluminium Park, an upcoming industrial facility near our mega aluminium smelter at Jharsuguda, in Odisha. It will be one of India’s largest metal parks and provide aluminium-based industries with a plethora of unmatched advantages for creating high-quality products at par with global quality standards, thus making in India for the world.
Outlook for 2023
India is at a vantage point to become the world’s manufacturing hub, with rich mineral reserves, a strategic geographic location for trade, a skilled and diverse workforce, a vast manufacturing capacity, and a government keen to promote domestic manufacturing for self-reliance. Today, India meets about 60% of its aluminium demand through imports. At 3 kg per capita, aluminium consumption in India is well below the global average of 12 kg per capita, promising immense growth.
Towards this end, we are ramping up production to add new product lines at our aluminium smelters at Jharsuguda and BALCO in Chhattisgarh and diversify our product mix. We are also investing in the digital transformation of our plants and processes, leveraging green technologies, diversifying our energy mix to include renewables, and working towards our vision of net zero carbon.
Catalysing the journey of a self-reliant India
With customer obsession at the heart of everything we do, we see our role as that of a catalyst, giving our customers an edge above the rest. Not only do we offer them the highest quality of products, but also a bundle of advantages through 360-degree holistic solutions that support them at various stages of their business aspirations. For instance, we work with our customers to co-create product solutions through our deep R&D capabilities, an ecosystem of technical experts, a Centre of Excellence, and a strong Customer Technical Services cell. To provide our customers with unprecedented ease of buying, we have created an online sales solution that brings together all our offerings, backed by robust CRM, finance, and logistics solutions.
There is immense opportunity in India to substitute imports of high-end alloys and aluminium products for special applications across various industry sectors. For instance, we developed Primary Foundry Alloys (PFA) and Cylinder Head Alloy for the automotive industry, and AlSi3 Ingot for the steel industry, which were hitherto entirely imported into India, until Vedanta started manufacturing them indigenously. We have plans to convert 100% of our product portfolio into value-added products and reduce the import dependence of Indian industries.
The Indian aluminium industry, with its extensive value-chain, customer, and supplier ecosystem, has tremendous potential to contribute as a wealth creator to the country’s economic progress. Inarguably, India is capable of being self-reliant on aluminium. All that is required is a concerted effort from policy enablers and industry players towards innovation-led manufacturing and promoting global cost-competitiveness along with ease of doing business.
