Novelis will spend about $2 billion largely on greenfield project at Bay Minette
Hindalco Industries, an Aditya Birla Group company, expects India to be self-sufficient in copper and stop being import-dependent in the next two years, while for its subsidiary Novelis Inc., FY27 is seen to be an inflection year.The company is putting up a three-lakh tonne per annum (tpa) copper smelter plant and 50,000-tpa copper recycling plant both in Gujarat. Currently, it has copper smelting capacity of 5 lakh tpa.Satish Pai, Managing Director, Hindalco Industries, said the country will be self sufficient in copper in the next two years, just like it is in Aluminium, after the company’s expansion plans go on stream.“The public hearing was completed for setting up the three-lakh tpa smelter plant and the 50,000-tpa recycling plant is also coming up, besides the fresh copper capacity of Adani Group has already started production,” he said.Though the country has to depend on imported copper concentrates, the final metal can be produced in India and meet the Prime Minister’s ambition of cutting down on copper imports, he said.Hindalco has also started exploration in a copper mine near Nagpur and expects to source 20-25 per cent of its copper ore requirement from India in five years against 10 per cent sourced from Hindustan Copper mines now.The company plans to invest ₹12,000-crore capex in this fiscal against ₹10,000 crore invested in FY26.Novelis’ capex plansNovelis will spend about $2 billion largely on greenfield project at Bay Minette, while the fire-hit Oswego aluminium hot mill plant is expected to restart operations in a week.The Bay Minette plant should start production by November, while Oswego should commence output by July.In fact, Pai said besides India, the US operations will be the major inflection point for the company in this fiscal.The cost of raw material in India will go up 5 per cent sequentially in the June quarter, largely due to rise in furnace oil and pitch coke. While the company has contained the rise in power cost, the two key raw material are driven globally, he said.The company expects its aluminium downstream EBITDA to grow more than double-digit this fiscal, given the strong demand.Hindalco has stepped in to address the short-fall of aluminium supply in Japan, Korea and Taiwan from West Asia.“Though our focus was to tap the domestic markets, the company found increased demand in its key markets to tap amid strong commodity prices,” said Pai.The company’s net debt increased sharply to ₹64,841 crore against ₹35,332 crore. The net debt to EBITDA has jumped to 1.83 times ( 1.06 times). It expects the ratio to come down substantially in the next three years when the capex plans are completed, he added.Published on May 25, 2026
