Vedanta Resources plc spent $1.8bn in the six months to September 30, to expand capacities in aluminium, zinc, copper, iron ore and electricity. Since March this year, the company has raised $3.35bn for expenditure in 2010 – which it calls a “peak year” for growth.Since it landed on London in late 2003, Vedanta has become the eighth biggest mining outfit registered on the capital’s stock exchange. Nonetheless, though generally recognised as the most acquisitive global miner during the past ten months, Vedanta has suffered as much as most other extractive companies from the financial meltdown. Its pre-tax profits tumbled by almost half between September 2009 and September 2009 – down from $1.14billion to $605 million; while revenues fell by a quarter ($4bn to $3 bn). The Financial Times’ William MacNamara commented last week that “Vedanta has now shifted to power generation” in India, intending to generate 10,000MW in the country by 2014. Half of this will feed smelters; the rest will be sold to the country’s grid. Although Vedanta’s executive chairman, Anil Agarwal, has mooted investing in nuclear power, this would be a fanciful “solution” to meeting India’s energy needs – and that of his own – at any point over the next 15-20 years. So, in practice, Vedanta will be using coal – and a heck of a lot.
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9613.