With copper unit in Mundra, Gautam Adani makes his metal industry debut

Kutch Copper, a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, has commissioned the first unit of its greenfield copper refinery project at Mundra on Thursday by dispatching the maiden batch of cathodes to customers.

This marks the Adani Portfolio’s debut in the metal industry. The group is investing nearly $1.2 billion to set up a copper smelter with 0.5 MTPA capacity in the first phase. On completion of the second phase that will add similar capacity, Kutch Copper, with 1 MTPA, will be the world's largest single-location custom smelter, benchmarking ESG performance standards while leveraging state-of-the-art technology and digitalisation.

It will create 2,000 direct and 5,000 indirect employment opportunities.

“With Kutch Copper commencing operations, the Adani portfolio of companies is not only entering the metals sector but also driving India's leap towards a sustainable and aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) future,” Gautam Adani said.

Kutch Copper is working towards establishing Kutch Copper Tubes Limited as part of its forward integration strategy to add copper tubes to its portfolio. The tubes will cater to applications in air conditioning and refrigeration.

India joins China and other nations in rapidly expanding its ability to produce copper, a metal deemed crucial to the world’s transition away from fossil fuels. The breakneck growth is affecting profitability: the annual fees charged by smelters in China will drop for the first time in three years in 2024 as their capacity outpaces the supply of ore.

India’s imports of copper concentrate could grow to as much as 2 million tons in 2024, from 1.3 million tons estimated for this year, said Soni Kumari, commodity strategist at ANZ Banking Group. The market will be even tighter in 2025 “because of expanding smelting capacity in China and India,” she said.

India imports more than 90% of its ore requirements, mostly from South America. The Adani smelter could suck in as much as 1 million tons of overseas copper concentrate in its first year of operation, Jayanta Roy, senior vice president at ICRA, an arm of Moody’s Investors Service told Bloomberg.

India’s total imports could rise to 2.6 million tons assuming peak capacity utilization, he said.