India's Vedanta Ltd will halve output at its one- million-tonne-a-year alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Orissa state in about two months, a senior executive said, due mainly to a shortage of raw material bauxite and weak world prices.

Job cuts at the refinery, which converts bauxite into alumina and employs about 2,000 people, are likely to be proportional to output reduction, Abhijit Pati, head of Vedanta's aluminium business, told Reuters on Thursday.

Alumina (Other OTC: AWCMF - news) , or aluminium oxide, is heated to make aluminium that is used in everything from utensils and cans to cars and aircraft.