LONDON (Reuters) - Qatar is not in talks with India's National Aluminum Co. Ltd. (NALCO) (NALU.BO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) about building a new aluminum smelter and would prefer to focus on an existing smelter plan with Norsk Hydro (NHY.OL: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Qatar's energy minister said on Tuesday.
"We never talk with others ... we don't want to divide our time," Abdullah al-Attiyah told a Reuters Energy summit in London.
"We have no time to do more smelter agreements."
State-run NALCO said last month it planned to build a $3.4 billion smelter in Qatar or Oman, in conjunction with an oil producer, boosting its shares.
A Nalco spokesman said "the company has not yet finalized a location for the plant. We had explored several locations including Qatar."
(Additonal reporting by Thomas Kutty Abraham in Mumbai)
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