The National Aluminum Company Ltd (NALCO) is intending to set up a 0.5 million ton capacity aluminum plant in South Africa. The new plant would use local mineral resources as its raw material.

During his visit to South Africa earlier this week, the Indian Minister of State for Mines, Subbarami Reddy, had the preliminary discussions on the plan with the the Head of Mining and Steel Ministry of South Africa, Sandile Nogxina.

Reddy, who was with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to Nigeria and South Africa, revealed NALCO’s intent on establishing the plant to Nogxina.

According to the Minister’s office, Nogxina responded positively and assured the Minister that his country would extend all possible support along with access to local mineral resources for Nalco to do the value addition”.

Reddy expressed India’s eagerness to avail the services of Mine Qualification Authority of South Africa to acquire the latest mining technologies.

Both countries agreed to develop a joint collaboration to make use of South African training facilities in mining for Indian technicians in India as well as by sending Indian technicians, engineers and geo-scientists to South Africa.

Furthermore, Reddy and his counterpart also agreed on establishing of a joint technical working group comprising experts to develop a plan of action and identify projects and report to both the Governments, once or twice a year.