Vedanta unveils 9.8 billion dollar expansion plan, mostly in India

London, Sept 10 : Vedanta Resources plans to spend 9.8 billion dollars in the near future to achieve its goal of becoming the world's leading aluminium producer.

According to the Londoan-based Financial Times, the biggest element in the expansion project is a 1.25m tone a year capacity smelter to be built at on a brownfield site at Jharsuguda in Orissa, the state where most of India's bauxite and coal reserves are located.

That plant will cost 5.65 billion dollars.

A new 325,000 ton capacity smelter at Korba in Chattisgarh will cost two billion dollars. Both projects will be phased over four years. Output will be begin in 2010 and 2011.

Each will be supplied by new build power plants.

On Tuesday, it said refinery debottle necking and new capacity to be built over the next three years at Lanjigarh would cost 2.15 billion dollars.

The plans, which have been announced three months after Vedanta said it intended to invest 20 billion dollars in India between now and 2012.

ANI