India: Kerneos Aluminate Technologies, a leader in specialty cements, hopes to commission a proposed US$19m plant in India by December 2016. The company has finalised plans to set up a greenfield unit near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
"We chose Visakhapatnam as the site for our own factory since it is ideally placed close to our customers in the eastern region. Being a port-based site, it offers the advantage of raw materials imports while serving as a base for exports in the near future," said president and CEO of Kerneos Jean-Marc Bianchi. The new plant will produce calcium alumina cement. It will have an initial capacity of 30,000t/yr. Kerneos plans to add a similar capacity at a later stage depending on the rate of product uptake in India. The Visakhapatnam unit will be Kerneos' seventh manufacturing facility worldwide.