After the closure of Tuticorin plant, now India’s copper import will increase due to this reason
The closure of Vedanta’s Sterlite Copper Plant in Tuticorin forced the country to import copper. Now due to some such changing development model, the country will have to import even more copper. The reason behind this is India’s increasing shift towards electric vehicles. The average battery of an electric vehicle requires 83 kilograms of copper. At the same time, solar photovoltaic and onshore wind power requires about 3,000 kilograms of copper to produce just one megawatt of electricity. Offshore wind power generation is a fairly high copper demand, requiring over 8,000 kg of copper.
Increased demand for copper in the electric vehicle industry
According to an English media report, Hetal Gandhi, director of CRISIL Research, said, ‘Copper is very important for electric vehicles. The boom in the electric vehicle industry has fueled the demand for copper from the auto segment. It currently accounts for about 10 per cent of India’s total copper demand of about 1.1 million tonnes per annum. The growing demand in the renewable energy and automotive sectors is expected to exceed two million tonnes by 2030. For this, India remains on track to achieve more than 450 GW of renewable energy capacity and 30% EV penetration in passenger vehicles by 2030.
Shutdown of Tuticorin plant increased import percentage
Hindalco, Vedanta and HCL primarily produce copper, but due to the closure of the Vedanta Tuticorin plant in 2018, there has been a sharp decline in copper production and due to this, imports have also increased.
India’s copper imports grew by 13.2 per cent during the financial year 2018-19. Due to the Tuticorin plant, the production of copper in India had increased at the rate of about 10 percent since 2013, which in the year 2019 suddenly decreased by about 46 percent. Due to the Sterlite plant in Tuticorin, earlier a total of 1 million tonnes of copper was produced across the country.
Delay in commissioning of Adani’s copper plant
However, Adani had obtained environment clearance for a 1,000 kilo tonne copper factory with an investment of Rs 11,000 crore. This plant will be commissioned in the next 3-4 years. Even though copper production will increase then, India’s dependence on copper will increase. In such a country, it is necessary to increase the production of copper so that the dependence on imports can be reduced. Overall, India’s dependence on copper will increase further and India’s imports are going to increase.
