Vedanta received “good response” for Sterlite copper plant's likely sale, says CEO

Sunil Duggal - CEO of Vedanta Ltd

Anil Agarwal led-Vedanta Ltd has received “good response” from potential suitors for its Sterlite copper plant, said Chief Executive Officer Sunil Duggal on July 28. But he refrained from disclosing details of the interested parties.

On June 20, Vedanta surprised the street with the announcement in newspapers seeking initial bids for sale of its troubled smelter at Thoothukudi in southern Tamil Nadu, which has been shut since mid-2018. Later, on the same day, the company had clarified that the sale is only at an “exploratory stage”. The last day of submission of bids was July 4, 2022.

ALSO READ: Closure of Vedanta's copper unit results in Rs 14,749 crore loss to economy: Report

Talking to media in a quarterly earning conference call, Duggal said that the company is still hopeful of re-starting the plant and is evaluating the condition of the plant given that the company wasn’t even given permission for care and maintenance.

“The company is now planning to restart that plant given it has received a lot of pressure from stakeholders, transporters, MSME community and other business partners," said Duggal.

ALSO READ: Sterlite Thoothukudi Copper Plant sale timeline

The management said it is hopeful of a favourable judgment from the Supreme court that may enable the re-start of the unit soon. They said that Supreme court had last week ordered a day-to-day trail of the matter.

The company’s decision to consider sale of the Thoothukudi unit raised questions over the timing, as the copper unit has been shut, and if the company will consider selling its Goa operations which has also faced prolonged stoppage of mine for over four years. When asked about the Goa projects, management declined by saying that it hasn’t considered selling the plant.