The Madras Aluminium Company Ltd. (MALCO) was established in 1965 at Mettur Dam, near the city of Salem, Tamil Nadu in collaboration with Montecatine of Italy. MALCO was the only integrated primary Aluminium Metal complex in the entire South India with its own captive mining, refining, smelting and power generation operations.

The Company was declared sick in the year 1987 due to vagaries of power supply the operations were suspended for three years from 1992 to 1995. BIFR sanctioned a rehabilitation scheme which envisaged a change in management.

MALCO was taken over by the Vedanta group in 1995 and the new management has re-written the success story of MALCO. As the Company’s networth turned positive, it was delisted from the purview of BIFR in the year 1997. The Company has ploughed its entire internal accruals towards diversification and modernization.

MALCO has a state-of-the-art, coal-based Captive Power Plant at the same location which was commissioned in the year 1999. In the year 2004 MALCO augmented its smelter capacity from earlier 25,000TPA to 40,000TPA.

In the year 2008 we thought it prudent to change the business model from that of aluminium manufacture to power generation considering various techno-economic factors and non-availability of key raw materials. MALCO grabbed this opportunity and scaled generation by commissioning a new unit for wheeling a larger power output for external sales which was more value accretive.

The Company has shown exemplary resilience in adapting to the new power business model.