GMDC seeks partnership for smooth exchange between mining and manufacturing units, plans to construct alumina refinery

The state-owned Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GDMC) is planning to expand its wings around the alumina and solar sector, as a part of diversification. The last one year has been very tremulous for GMDC since they have been trying to improve their bauxite, limestone, manganese, silica and power distributing divisions. Three advisory firms have been appointed by the firm namely; Boston Consultancy Group (BCG) for strategic transformation at the group level, AT Kearney for transformation of the power business and Deloitte as project management consultant.

GDMC plans to invite a tender to construct an alumina refinery in partnership where assured amounts of bauxite produced in the mines would be sent for alumina production.

“The company at present has 1.1 million tonne of bauxite for which there are no buyers. Our first priority would be to sell the non-plant grade bauxite. As part of the plan, we will then hire experts to produce efficient grade bauxite as per industry demand. The tender for setting up an alumina plant will happen after all the improvements,” Roopwant Singh, managing director of GMDC, said.

Apparently, GMDC has around 1,600 million tonne of limestone reserve in Kutch that it wants to supply as feedstock for cement manufacturing agencies. It is currently looking for such a cement company, who can take limestone from them in a regular basis, which is the raw material used to make binding agents. The miner is also interested in lending out the lands it had once acquired for solar projects to a capable solar power company, Singh said.

The consultant working at Kearney has already stirred the company’s fortune as a growth of 65% in the thermal plant load factor is being noted in Q3 of financial year 2022 which in comparison to the 14% growth of 2021 is huge.

“For any lignite coal plant the tariff is restrictive at Rs. 2.46 per unit. We are working on revising the stringent PPA norms with GUVNL, and will look at selling the plant at an appropriate time,” Singh said. The company is also working on re-negotiating the contract for 50 MW wind capacity out of 200 MW as it faces service-related issues with Inox Wind, a fully integrated wind-energy provider from Gujrat.

In the near future, the company also plans to bring its six additional lignite blocks into operation over the next two financial years. “We will invest Rs 1,500 crore into the development of these mines which will help us to cater to the 50% of Gujarat’s total fuel demand. We currently meet 25% of the total fuel demand of 24 million tonne from existing five mines in Gujarat,” Singh said.

source https://www.alcircle.com/news/gmdc-seeks-partnership-for-smooth-exchange-between-mining-and-manufacturing-units-plans-to-construct-alumina-refinery-77956