File picture of Nalco’s smelter plant at Angul in Odisha.

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 18: The National Alumina Company Limited (Nalco) is planning to set up an aluminium smelter plant in western Odisha at an estimated cost of Rs 16,000 crore.

Sources said the project was likely to come up in Odisha’s Sundergarh district.

“The project is being pursued with the Odisha government,” said Nalco chairman-cum-managing director B.L. Bagra.

Elaborating on the expansion of various Nalco projects, Bagra said: “Nalco has taken up different greenfield projects in the country. The company is planning to set up a Rs 4,500 crore alumina refinery in Gujarat with a production capacity of one million tonnes per annum.”

The company also has plans to set up a 1.4-million tonnes per annum alumina refinery in Andhra Pradesh based on local bauxite reserves. “We have also started corporate social responsibility works in the vicinity of our project areas,” said the Nalco chief.

Bagra said the annual capacity of the bauxite mines had been scaled up to 63 lakh tonnes per annum, while that of the alumina refinery had gone up to 21 lakh tonnes per annum.

“We have also initiated activities for the third phase brownfield expansion at the existing facilities in Odisha at an estimated investment of Rs 7,500 crore,” he said.

Unveiling Nalco’s plan in the energy sector, he further said that the company had formed a joint venture with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited to set up a nuclear power plant in the country. “Both the partners have selected third and fourth units of nuclear power station at Kakrapar in Gujarat with a capacity of 700MW as their first joint venture project with an estimated project cost of Rs 11,500 crore. Construction has already started for the project and it is scheduled to be commissioned by December 2015,” he said.

To harness unconventional energy sources, Nalco is setting up a Rs 274-crore wind power project in Andhra Pradesh with a capacity of 50.4MW, which is in the final stage of commissioning.