Hindalco’s copper division will be investing ₹2450 crore on two copper projects in Gujarat, which includes an electronic waste or e-waste recycling facility at Dahej in South Gujarat which will produce 200 kilo tonnes of copper annually.
“We are starting work on constructing India’s first recycling plant for copper and electronic waste at Dahej. In the Phase-1 we will recover about 50 kilo tonnes of copper. The overall project is about 200 kilo tonnes of copper and the plant will process close to 300-350 kilo tonnes of scrap and e-waste, annually,” Rohit Pathak, CEO of Copper Business of Hindalco Industries Ltd told Business Line on the side lines of the ongoing 4th Global RE-Invest summit at Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
“The Phase-1 of the project will have an investment of ₹2000 crore. This investment will be scaled up four times in the coming years. Through this project, we will also play the role of organizing the scrap collection industry in India,” Pathak added.
The recycling plant will produce multi-metals including copper, silver, gold and other precious metals. This recycling plant to salvage copper from e-waste is expected to go a long way for the company which currently imports 90 percent of copper concentrates required for its smelter plant at Dahej.
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The company imports almost 1.3 million tonnes of copper concentrates which contain about 25 percent copper. Dahej in Bharuch district of the state also houses Birla Copper’s custom copper smelter which is one of the largest single location smelters in the world.
“In Gujarat we have one of the largest copper smelting complexes. Last year we produced and sold more than half a million tonnes of copper, which made it the second largest --- outside China --- for copper rods. We are expanding our upstream capacity at Dahej to serve the growing Indian demand for copper. We will add 250-280 kilo tonnes of capacity. This will increase our capacity by 50-60 percent,” Pathak added. This capacity is being increased to meet the growing Indian demand for copper.
₹450 crore facility at Vadodara
Birla Copper is also setting up a ₹450 crore unit in Vadodara for manufacturing copper tubes that are used in air-conditioners and other refrigeration systems.
“We are making downstream products which were imported into India. We are building one of the largest copper inner groove tube factory in the country. This factory will be the largest in the country and will be built in Waghodia in Vadodara.”
“These copper inner groove tubes are used mostly in air conditioners. The Waghodia plant will produce about 25,000 tonnes of copper tubes in Phase-1 which will require an investment of ₹450 crores. The plant will be expanded to 75000 tonnes in the coming years which will cost about ₹1500 crores,” the official said.
“We have also started making special alloys of copper-silver and copper-magnesium which are going to be required as we move to high speed rail. As the railways push beyond the 130 kilometer mark, higher tensile strength is needed and better conductive wires which require special alloys,” he added.