ANGUL: Nalco officials on Friday shut down 60 aluminium producing pots in its smelter plant here following shortage of power required for functioning of the plant. The smelter plant has a total of 960 pots which produce about 1,200 tonne of metal every day.To run the plant to full capacity, it requires about 900 MW of uninterrupted power supply, but it could manage to get 800 MW. Sources said the captive power plant which has 10 110 MW units cannot run to full capacity for want of coal.However, it was running seven units till Thursday but it had shut down one unit for want of coal. This affected power generation from its captive plant forcing the authorities to shut down pots.Nalco, having linkage with MCL for coal supply, normally requires 18,000 tonne of coal a day to run eight units in the power plant for steady power supply to the smelter.However, the supply has not been consistent for the last several months.“As the coal supply remained very low and the situation alarming in the power plant, we had to close down some pots temporarily due to power crisis.Production will be resumed soon after power situation improves,” said Nalco Director (Production) A K Sharma.However, the shutting down of pots has been opposed by the recognised workers’ union. “The shutdown in smelter plant is unwarranted. Authorities took no steps in managing coal shortage situation which was expected,” said Nirmal Samal, secretary of the union.An official of MCL said though the coal supply was less, it is being maintained.There has been a despatch of about 12,000 to 13,000 tonne of coal supply to the Nalco plant daily.
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