Bhubaneswar: Per capita consumption of aluminium in India is very low by the global standards. Under the guidance of NITI Aayog, Hindalco is striving to drive this consumption growth and hence our future investment plan is largely geared towards enhancing the downstream value added consumption.
In a nascent market, a major step towards driving this consumption growth is to demonstrate the benefits of aluminium as a metal to the end consumers. Globally, aluminium finds several applications in automobile sector owing to its unique properties such as light weight, high strength (high strength to weight ratio) and resistance to corrosion. While many experts understand the benefits of aluminium, the OEMs in India are little slow in adapting the metal in the Indian context as they fear that high upfront costs would deter the user from purchasing aluminium body (BIW) vehicles. The other apprehension is about maintenance cost of such vehicles and challenges in maintaining/repairing them. The general perception is that aluminium is only meant for high end, expensive and swanky automobiles, especially cars, which is not right. Hindalco is taking concentrated efforts to breaks this belief. Hindalco is working on demonstrating these benefits in the commercial vehicle segment. Within the commercial vehicle the bulkiest/heaviest segment is bulk carriers or tankers.
A dry bulk carrier that is used for carrying cement, fly ash, food grains, PTA powder, alumina etc. made from indigenous aluminium demonstrate the benefits of aluminium and showcase the enormous potential.
This was exhibited at the prestigious INCAL-2019, the premium exhibition and conference, a showcase event for the global aluminium companies across the aluminium value chain.
This bulker not only depicts Hindalco’s unmatched capability in India but is also a live proof of demonstration of the benefits of aluminium vs steel in such applications, in terms of light weight, lower maintenance cost and longer life. This bulker of 30 cubic meter is 2 tonnes lighter than an MS bulker and the benefits will be higher for larger size. The payback period for the incremental investment of Rs 4 lac is less than 1.5 years (Al bulker costs around Rs 8 lac as compared to Rs 4 lac for MS bulker for this capacity), after that the life cycle benefit translated into an extra earnings of over Rs 25 lacs for an investment of around Rs 8 lacs. These earnings are in the form of higher tonnage due to lower dead weight, lower maintenance cost and enhanced life due to unique properties of aluminium high strength alloys used in fabrication.
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