BACK

It has been a landmark year for the Indian aluminium industry. Early in the year, Hindalco, one of the country’s biggest producers, became the first Indian aluminium maker to make its mark overseas with a big acquisition, paying $6bn for Novelis, the Canada-based can recycler and rolled-aluminium maker. This was followed by Sterlite Industries, India’s largest non-ferrous metals producer, owned by Vedanta Resources of the UK, which held the country’s biggest listing on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $1.75bn. This newfound confidence in the industry stems from two factors. India has some of the world’s largest untapped high-quality bauxite resources, as well as plentiful supplies of low-cost coal to provide the electricity to convert this into aluminium. If the industry can raise the capital to build the capacity to exploit these advantages, India can emerge from contributing only 3 per cent of the world’s total output of aluminium last year of 34m tonnes a year to become one of the largest suppliers of the metal.