Ahead of Independence Day, Vedanta Limited (NSE: VEDL), India’s leading critical minerals, energy transition metals, energy, and technology conglomerate, announced a major milestone – crossing USD 5 billion in capital expenditure in India from its total planned outlay of USD 8.5 billion within the country. These investments are focused on capacity expansions, backward integration, and raw material security projects, reinforcing India’s journey towards resource atmanirbharta and building a resilient industrial base capable of withstanding global market volatility.
Vedanta operates some of the largest and most strategic natural resource assets in the country, including the world’s largest single-location aluminium smelter, the world’s largest underground zinc mining site, the world’s largest single location zinc-lead smelter, and India’s largest onshore oil field. In the past two fiscals alone, the company has invested nearly USD 2.5 billion in India to boost production capacity, strengthen backward integration, integrate new technologies and expand its value-added product portfolio.
In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, Vedanta’s subsidiary business Hindustan Zinc announced an investment of USD 1.4 billion as part of its board-approved first phase of doubling capacity plans. The investment is centred towards setting up a 250 KTPA integrated smelting complex in Udaipur along with mines and mills expansion.
Vedanta has been at the forefront of ensuring domestic availability of key resources including oil & gas, aluminium, zinc, silver, lead, ferrochrome, steel and nickel for India’s growing economy and finding applications in infrastructure, defence, aerospace, automotive, hi-tech manufacturing and technology. The aluminium business caters to nearly half of India’s total demand and Vedanta is expanding its value-added product portfolio to serve high-end applications in renewable energy, automotive, aerospace and other growth sectors.
In zinc, Vedanta holds a 77% market share in the domestic primary market and meets around 10 percent of India’s silver demand with 100% of the sales within the country. The oil and gas operations produce roughly a quarter of the nation’s hydrocarbons and has produced approximately 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent since inception. The company’s steel production caters entirely to the domestic market. While for nickel, Vedanta is the sole producer of nickel in India and 80% of the metal is sold in the domestic market.
In the wake of the recent tariffs, Vedanta believes that ensuring the domestic availability of energy transition metals such as aluminium, zinc, silver and oil & gas at globally competitive prices will be critical to powering India’s public infrastructure, renewable energy and defence projects.
“In an era of rising resource nationalism, Vedanta is committed to ensuring India’s growth is powered by its own resources. Our integrated operations, scale and sustained investments enable us to meet domestic demand with world-class products while insulating the economy from volatile global trade policies and geopolitical vagaries. This is not just about self-reliance, it’s about securing India’s long-term strategic and economic future,” said a Vedanta spokesperson.
Vedanta’s vision of producing for Desh ki Zarooraton ke Liye (for the needs of the country) reflects the broader call for economic sovereignty and positions the country to leverage its abundant mineral wealth for sustainable, inclusive and globally competitive growth. By aligning its operations with India’s atmanirbharta vision, Vedanta aims to turn the current global trade turbulence into a long-term competitive advantage, using its scale and integration to position India as a resource-secure, globally competitive economy.
