Displaying items by tag: ACC

India: Vicat has appointed Gagandeep Singh Khehra as its Head of Production and Process at its subsidiaries in India.

Singh Khehra has worked in the cement industry since the mid-2000s. He began his career working for Binani Cement in 2007 before joining Holcim in 2010, holding production roles at its local subsidiary ACC. He eventually became the Head of Production at its Wadi plant, Karnataka in 2024. This role continued following the acquisition by Adani Group. Singh Khehra holds an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Punjab Technical University.

India: Adani Group has appointed Gagandeep Singh Khehra as its Deputy General Manager Production. Singh Khehra was formerly Head of Production at Adani Group subsidiary ACC. He joined predecessor company Holcim India from Binani Cement in 2010.

Singh Khehra holds a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Punjab Technical University in Jalandhar, Punjab.

India: ACC, part of Adani Group, has reported a 4% year-on-year rise in consolidated net profit to US$43.3m in the first quarter of the 2026 fiscal year, aided by a 12% in sales volumes. It reported a sales volume of 11.5Mt, its highest ever total for the period. This helped revenue increase by 17% to US$703m. The company added that higher sales of premium products aided the revenue.

It expects 6 - 7% growth in demand for cement over the course of its 2026 financial years. This is anticipated due to a rise in demand for affordable housing, higher spending on infrastructure and commercial sectors. "Cement demand growth in the first quarter of FY2026 remained strong at 4% amid favourable macroeconomic situations and sustained demand from housing and infrastructure segments. The outlook for the second quarter of FY2026 continues to remain strong," said ACC in a statement.

India: Ambuja Cements subsidiary ACC has commissioned a 1.5Mt/yr brownfield grinding unit at its Sindri plant in Jharkhand. The project takes the total installed cement production capacity across Ambuja and ACC to 104.45Mt/yr.

India: ACC Chair Karan Adani says that he expects the cement industry to benefit from the an anticipated US$2.2tn in new public infrastructure spending between 2025 and 2030.

Press Trust of India News has reported that Adani said "ACC crossed the 100Mt/yr cement capacity milestone in April 2025, propelling us closer to our ambitious 140Mt/yr target by the 2028 financial year." The company’s capacity corresponds to 15% of an all-India installed capacity of 686Mt/yr.

India: The Rural Development Department has signed a memorandum of understanding with ACC Cements to co-process non-recyclable plastic waste at its Barmana plant. The initiative will cover the Bilaspur, Chamba, Kangra, Kullu and Mandi districts. The partnership follows similar agreements with Ambuja Cements and UltraTech Cements, and aims to reduce environmental pollution and landfill use through cement kiln co-processing.

India: Orient Cement has appointed Vaibhav Dixit as its CEO. He succeeds Desk Deepak Khetrapal, who has resigned from the post. Other notable appointments include that of Vinod Bahety as chair and Kajal Sarda as chief financial officer.

Dixit has worked in the cement industry for more than 20 years with jobs at ACC, including Unit Head of Jamul Cement Works, Unit Head of Sindri Cement Works, Project Head at Sindri, Head Engineering of Bargarh Cement Works and Chief Manager Maintenance of Kymore Cement Works. He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the Madhav Institute of Technology and Sciences.

Bahety became the CEO of Ambuja Cements and ACC earlier in April 2025. Prior to this, he was the CFO of the subsidiaries of Adani Group from 2022. He also worked as the Group Head for Merger & Acquisition at Adani Group. He holds qualifications as a chartered accountant and a cost and works accountant.

Sarda, a trained chartered accountant, has worked for other 20 years in business finance. She has been the Head of Financial Reporting at Adani Gorup since 2023. Prior to this, she worked for as Corporate Finance Controller for Hindustan Zinc and as a Marketing Controller at Bharat Aluminium Company.

Ambuja Cements secured approval from the Competition Commission of India in March 2025 to buy Orient Cement.

India: Kaushalya Logistics has started operations at a new depot in Bathnaha, Bihar, as part of its logistics services for ACC. This latest site brings the company's total operational locations to 90. It is its fourth depot under its so-called ‘CCFA model’ for the subsidiary of Adani Cement. Kaushalya Logistics transports cement and handles associated logistics on behalf of companies including Adani Cement and JK Cement. It aims to handle a volume of 3.6Mt/yr of cement as part of its current expansion plans.

India: A committee has identified environmental compliance failures at the Adani-owned ACC cement plant in Barmana, Bilaspur district, according to The Indian Express.

The inspection conducted revealed inadequate dust emission controls, missing three-layer tree plantation and deficient truck-tyre washing systems at the plant. Only one kiln was operational at 40% capacity during the visit, as the plant is undergoing maintenance from 3 January to 8 February 2025. Therefore, the committee has requested an additional eight weeks to submit its report, so that it may conduct a more thorough investigation once the plant is operating at full capacity.

The Himachal Pradesh Pollution Control Board has previously imposed a US$149,000 fine on the plant in April 2022 for air quality breaches and untreated water discharge, with at least seven complaints lodged against the plant by local residents over the last three years.

Many readers will be aware that Gautam Adani was accused of fraud by a US court this week. In a brief statement, Adani Group said that the allegations were “baseless and denied.” The indictment relates to a solar power project, but what does this mean for Adani Group’s cement businesses?

The charges by the US Department of Justice allege, following an investigation, that Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain, executives of India-based renewable-energy company Indian Energy Company, committed “...securities and wire fraud and substantive securities fraud for their roles in a multi-billion-dollar scheme to obtain funds from US investors and global financial institutions on the basis of false and misleading statements.” A number of other individuals have also been accused, along with the two Adanis and Jaain, of participating in a US$250m bribery scheme to Indian government officials connected to a large-scale solar energy project. The indictment related to the period 2020 - 2024 and further alleges on several occasions that “Gautam Adani personally met with an Indian government official to advance the bribery scheme.” The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also started a connected civil case.

The problem here is that the indictment has rocked the value of Adani Group’s subsidiaries and reduced the credit ratings of some of them. This in turn will make it harder for these companies to raise money in the future for expansion. Various reports in the media said that the group’s companies had lost something in the region of US$30bn as stock prices fell by around 20%. They have since rallied somewhat. And lest we forget, Adani Group has some serious expansion plans. In the cement sector, it is targeting a production capacity of 140Mt/ yr by 2028. Recent transactions include Ambuja Cement’s purchase of Penna Cement for US$1.25bn in August 2024 and a planned acquisition announced in October 2024 of a 47% stake in Orient Cement for US$451m. The group was also linked in the local media to a bid to buy Heidelberg Materials’ India-based business in October 2024.

All of this comes with a price. International credit ratings agency S&P put Adani Ports, Adani Green Energy and Adani Electricity on a downgrade warning. Then, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s followed. Moody’s, for example, downgraded its outlook for seven Adani Group companies to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’ but it affirmed ratings on them. It commented that the allegations “could have a broader credit impact on all rated Adani group issuers” and that they would “likely weaken the Adani group’s access to funding and increase its capital costs.” It added that its actions recognised “...the possibility of broader weaknesses in the governance structure across the rated Adani group entities as well as potential operational disruptions, including on their capital-spending plans, while legal proceedings are going.” The decision by the ratings agencies does not appear to have directly affected Adani Group’s cement companies, Ambuja Cements or ACC, so far. The group may get lucky here given that these companies focus on the domestic market. Thus their credit ratings may remain more buoyant, regardless of what happens next.

As with a number of other global issues at the moment, the outcome of the recent US presidential election may also play into this case. Attorney Ravi Batra told the Press Trust of India that the incoming Trump administration might view the Adani charges as so-called ‘lawfare.’ This is where legal processes are used to target a nation’s economic or other opponents. In addition the current chair of the SEC, Gary Gensler, announced his intention to step down from the role in January 2025. It seems unlikely that the Trump administration might intervene in a legal case involving a foreign company accused defrauding US citizens but the possibility of realpolitik playing a role shouldn’t be totally discounted.

This is the second major international scandal overhanging Adani Group since the disclosures by Hindenburg Research back in early 2023. Those allegations were relatively easy to shrug off given that its accuser was an investment research firm with a reputation for using its findings for short selling shares. Hindenburg Research was not a neutral bystander. This time round, the US judicial system has become involved and the consequences are bigger both reputationally and from any potential legal outcome. In the short term, the credit implications for Adani Group as a whole are becoming apparent. Various companies and countries have stalled or cancelled planned investments. However, the cement business is smaller than the group’s power and transport concerns. It also operates domestically. We’ll have to wait and see what the wider implications for Adani Group are. The first thing to watch for the cement business will be any effect on its expansion plans.