India’s government has asked state-controlled National Aluminum Company Ltd, better known as NALCO, to rethink its overseas expansion plans, including a proposal to set up a $2 billion smelter unit in Iran, a top official said on Wednesday. “Value addition should happen in India and we should be self-sufficient in aluminum instead of importing by setting up plants overseas,” Mines Secretary Balvinder Kumar told Reuters. “We have asked them to expand their domestic capacity.” The secretary said the final decision would be taken by NALCO’s board on the Iran project. Repeated calls to the company’s chairman were not answered. Earlier in May, the state-owned company had entered into an initial agreement with Iranian Mines & Mining Industries Development & Renovation Organization to supply alumina from its refinery in India to set up an aluminum smelter in Iran. NALCO had also explored setting up a 500,000-ton-per-year smelter and an associated power plant in the Middle East.
