All bauxite bearing areas in the state have been reserved for Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC).
GMDC has joint ventures with US-based Alu Chem and Ashapura Minechem to build alumina projects in the state with a capacity of 1Mt/y each. GMDC will hold a minority stake of 26% equity in the projects. Each project is estimated to cost INR22bn ($485M). While Ashapura will set up the project in Kutch, Alu Chem is exploring Jamnagar district.
Gujarat has large bauxite deposits of about 104Mt. About 90% of these are in three districts - Kutch, Jamnagar and Junagadh.
All surplus plant grade and non-plant grade bauxite generated from the existing leases in the state will be sold or exported through GMDC.
With this, the state run group aims to trade about 10kt of bauxite in the next year, making about INR600M ($13.2M) of revenues.
Ashapura Minechem has been planning an alumina refinery in Gujarat for the past six to seven years but was hampered on three occasions.
Ohio-based AluChem entered into a joint venture with GMDC in 2007 where GMDC will supply the bauxite for a new refinery project in Jamnagar.
The proposed plant will manufacture hydrated alumina, calcined alumina, thermally-reactive alumina, tabular alumina and activated alumina.