Displaying items by tag: India
Larsen & Toubro wins 90 Komatsu mining equipment supply contracts
11 December 2020India: Larsen & Toubro has secured 90 contracts for the supply of Komatsu mining equipment to industrial companies, including various cement producers. The company says that the contracts include 66 orders for Komatsu dump trucks, 15 Komatsu wheel loaders and seven units of Komatsu hydraulic excavators.
Managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) Sekharipuram Narayanan Subrahmanyan said, “We are delighted to receive these orders from our valuable customers, across various sectors, which is a strong indication of the revival taking place in the mining industry, driven by the progressive and supportive policies of the government of India.”
Competition Commission of India launches investigation into ACC, Ambuja Cement and UltraTech Cement
10 December 2020India: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has raided the offices of LafargeHolcim subsidiaries ACC and Ambuja Cement and Aditya Birla subsidiary UltraTech Cement as part of an investigation into alleged anti-competitive behaviour, according to the Press Trust of India. ACC said it, "is of the firm view that it has acted and continues to act in compliance with competition laws and we are fully cooperating with the investigation and providing all necessary information to the authorities."
India starts to build cement capacity again
09 December 2020Manoj Kumar Rustagi was on hand yesterday to discuss JSW Cement’s operations in the UAE at the Virtual Middle Eastern Cement Conference. At the event, jointly organised by Global Cement Magazine and the Arab Union for Cement and Building Materials (AUCBM), Rustagi mainly stuck to the development of the producer’s new integrated plant in the Fujairah Free Zone but he also gave an overview of JSW Cement’s presence in India. For example, as part of an industrial conglomerate, JSW Group, the cement producer benefits from links to steel production by JSW Steel that enables it to use blast furnace slag. Notably, JSW Cement’s Shiva Cement subsidiary announced plans at the end of November 2020 to spend around US$200m on a new 1.4Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Sundergarh district, Odisha with the clinker production line supplied by ThyssenKrupp Industries India.
JSW Cement is not alone in ordering new production capacity. This week, UltraTech Cement approved a planned increase of 12.87Mt/yr for around US$740m. This is in addition to new capacity projects of 6.7Mt/yr that are currently underway. All of these new projects are scheduled to be commissioned in a phased manner by the end of the 2023 Indian financial year (by March 2023). It is unclear at present how exactly these projects are distributed but they are centred in the Northern, Central and Western Zones of the country, and the new tranche includes the previously announced Pali plant in Rajasthan. At this price the inference is that the much of the new capacity will be in the form of grinding plants and/or upgrades to existing clinker lines. Around the same time as this, LafargeHolcim said it wants to spend US$112m on waste heat recovery (WHR) plants for six of its cement plants in India by the end of 2022.
Graph 1: Change in Indian cement production year-on-year (%). Source: Office of the Economic Adviser.
These three projects by major producers suggest that the Indian cement sector is recovering from the effects of the coronavirus lockdown in late March 2020. Graph 1 above shows the sector finally recovering in October 2020, with growth of 3% year-on-year to 26.9Mt. Kumar Mangalam Birla, the chairman of Aditya Birla Group, credited the economic situation with the Indian government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat stimulus program for his decision to commit to UltraTech Cement’s spending spree. This outlook gels with that of Fitch Ratings. The credit ratings agency has forecast in a recent report that ‘strong’ margins during the first half of the 2021 financial year (April – September 2020) are going to limit the financial risks to the larger Indian cement companies despite the lower cement sales volumes due to coronavirus. Pent-up demand helped the industry recover after the lockdown and this was further aided by lower energy/fuel costs and general cost cutting.
Needless to say all of the above is good news for the Indian cement industry after the year it has had. One thought to consider from all of this is who might UltraTech Cement order its mills and clinker lines from? Atmanirbhar, the name of the Indian stimulus plan, has been described as ‘self-reliance’ or ‘self-sufficiency’ in the local press. Unfortunately, relations have been poor between India and China in 2020 due to armed skirmishes along the Line of Actual Control on the border, amongst other issues. Ordering a new clinker production line from, say China-based Sinoma, may not look especially ‘self-sufficient’ in the current climate.
Shree Cement supports war veterans with cement donations to families
08 December 2020India: Shree Cement plans to mark Vijay Diwas, the Indian commemoration day for the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, with free donations of cement for the families of armed forces personnel who died in battle between 1999 and 2019. Under the Naman scheme, the family or the next of kin of a deceased veteran will be given free cement to build a house on a plot of land up to around 370m2, according to the Times of India newspaper. The cement can be obtained in person from any of Shree Cement's manufacturing facilities spread across India.
Madukkarai Cement fined US$61,000 for fugitive cement dust
07 December 2020India: The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) has fined ACC subsidiary Madukkarai Cement US$61,000 for fugitive emissions of clinker and cement dust in mid-2020. The Hindu newspaper has reported that inspections found dust in the village Kurumbapalayam, Coimbatore District, located on the eastern side of the cement plant. An ambient air quality survey in September 2020 revealed higher-than-prescribed particulate volumes.
In addition to paying the fine, the producer must comply with 19 instructions of the TNPCB for air pollution control and monitoring by 7 January 2021.
UltraTech Cement targets 12.8Mt/yr additional cement capacity
04 December 2020India: The board of directors of Aditya Birla subsidiary UltraTech Cement has approved a planned increase in cement production capacity of 12.87Mt/yr. This will increase its capacity to 136Mt/yr from 123Mt/yr, at a cost of US$743m. The company says that the expansion will consist of new plants and upgrades to existing plants in the ‘fast-growing markets of the east, central and north regions of the country.’ This includes the upcoming Pali integrated cement plant in Rajasthan and capacity expansions at plants in Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, that are due for completion in the 2022 financial year (1 April 2021 - 31 March 2022).
The producer said, “Given the company’s history of setting up capacities in record time, commercial production from the new capacities is expected to go on stream in a phased manner, by early 2023. This capacity addition will not impact the on-going deleveraging programme, which is on track to make UltraTech debt-free by the time the expansion program is completed.”
Aditya Birla group chair Kumar Mangalam Birla said, “This significant investment in a core infrastructure sector will accelerate the wheels of economic activity and aid the kick-start of the private investment cycle. The capital outlay, given the current economic backdrop, is aligned with the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat programme. It is also a marker of UltraTech’s ascent from being India’s No.1 cement player to a national champion. The cement industry has been witnessing healthy volumes post-relaxation of lockdown, on the back of the government’s thrust on infrastructure, underlying demand from the rural economy and individual home builders. Given its pan-India presence, which will be further strengthened by the capacity expansion, UltraTech will be well-positioned to support the rising demand for cement in the country.”
Birla Corporation to raise US$20m through debentures
04 December 2020India: Birla Corporation plans to raise US$20m through redeemable non-convertible debentures (NCD). It has allotted 1500 NCDs with a value of around US$13,500 on a private placement basis. The producer announced plans in August 2020 for an upgrade to its Durgapur grinding plant in West Bengal.
Orient Cement to acquire 26% stake in AMPSolar Systems
04 December 2020India: Orient Cement has entered into a share purchase, subscription and shareholder’s agreement with AMPTechnology and AMPSolar Systems. It will acquire a 26% stake in the latter for around US$0.6m. The Press Trust of India has reported that AMPSolar Systems is establishing a 13.5MW solar power plant in Maharashtra, where Orient Cement operates an integrated cement plant.
Indian police confiscate 1000 bags of counterfeit cement
04 December 2020India: Police have made arrests in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh where cement was being bagged in falsely branded UltraTech Cement bags. The Free Press Journal has reported that the authorities confiscated over 1000 bags in the raid. They believe that the plant has been operative since 2018. Investigations continue, including a manhunt for suspected ringleader Jitendra Singh.
LafargeHolcim unveils Indian waste heat recovery plans
03 December 2020India: Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim plans to invest US$112m in implementing waste heat recovery (WHR) plants across six of its cement plants in India by the end of 2022. The group has estimated a net carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction of 0.5Mt/yr as a result of the installations, towards its target of a 65% total reduction between 2018 and 2030.
Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Magali Anderson said, "On our net zero journey, we set ourselves an ambitious scope-two target. I am very excited to see India leading the way by investing US$112m in WHR. This major step forward builds on our procurement teams’ work in renewable energy."
When commissioned, the new plants will double the group’s WHR power generation capacity in India.