Displaying items by tag: Gujarat

India: JSW Cement is planning to target the north and north-east of the country after a proposed initial public offering (IPO) in 2020. The company is looking for acquisitions in the region to meet its production capacity target of 20Mt/yr by 2020, according to a company executive quoted by the Economic Times newspaper. The cement producer has purchased two limestone mines via auction at Nagaur in Rajasthan and one in Gujarat. It is also considering building new cement plants near the mines. The company has a production capacity is 12.8Mt/yr at present.

India: Oman’s Raysut Cement plans to invest around US$700m in India by 2022. Joey Ghose, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, said that about US$200m has been set aside to buy majority stakes in two local producers in early 2019, according to the Hindu newspaper. Raysut Cement wants to increase its total cement production capacity to 20Mt/yr. The investment will be funded by internal revenue and loans.

The cement producer is holding talks with companies in Chhattisgarh and the coastal region of Gujarat respectively. Each company has a production capacity of around 1.2Mt/yr. Raysut Cement also intends to invest up to US$500m in these companies following their acquisition by 2022, bringing their capacity up to 5Mt/yr.

Outside of India, Raysut Cement also says it is interested in buying a 70% stake in Kenya’s ARM Cement for US$100m. It is also in discussions to acquire buy cement producers in Uganda and Djibouti. It currently has projects in development in Somaliland and Somalia. The company also holds a majority stake in Pioneer Cement Industries Georgia.

India: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has awarded terms of reference for Shree Cement's proposed plant at Bhuj in Gujarat. The proposed 3.5Mt/yr integrated plant project will include a waste heat recovery unit, a captive power plant, a synthetic gypsum unit and a railway terminal. The unit will be built near Maldo, Lakhpat tehsil in Kachchh district. Limestone for the plant will come from a quarry adjacent to the proposed site.

India: Sanghi Industries has received environment clearance for an upgrade to its cement plant at Sanghipuram, Kutch district in Gujarat. The unit’s clinker production capacity is being raised to 7.5Mt/yr from 3.5Mt/yr, according to the Times of India newspaper. Its cement production capacity is being increased to 8.6Mt/yr from 4Mt/yr. The US$194m project also involves building a cement grinding plant at Surat. The project is expected to be completed in 2020.

India: The Environment Ministry has approved a US$9.4m opencast limestone mine project by UltraTech Cement in Bhavnagar district, Gujarat. The cement producer has proposed to lease a 632 hectare site with a production capacity of 2.07Mt/yr, according to the Press Trust of India. The mine has total mineral reserves of 63.6Mt with a lifespan of 32 years. Conditions of the approval include relocating 147 families and a group of local farmers.

Limestone from the mine will be used to support a proposed cement plant in Bhavnagar district. It will also be sent to UltraTech’s other plants in the state.

India: Sanghi Cement plans to upgrade its production capacity to 8.1Mt/yr from 4.1Mt/yr. The expansion plan will consist of a 3.3Mt/yr upgrade to its cement plant at Sanghipuram in Gujarat and a 2Mt/yr upgrade to its satellite grinding plant. In addition the cement producer plans to build a 65MW thermal power plant at the main plant. The cost of the project will be US$197m and this will be mostly funded from borrowing.

India: Gujarat Sidhee Cement has extended the shutdown period of its Sidheegram plant until 28 September 2017 due to additional maintenance work on the kiln and coal mill. The maintenance period was originally scheduled to last until 25 August 2017. The cement producer said that cement grinding and packing operations will continue as normal and that the plant will meet all despatch requirements. Cement sales volumes are expected to be unaffected.

India: Gujarat’s Sanghi Cements is preparing to build a floating terminal at Kochi Port in Kerala. The plan is intended to targeted markets in the south of India, according to The Hindu newspaper. The floating terminal will consist of a berthed ship with a bagging plant on-board and it will have a capacity of 0.3Mt/yr.

“Once the project becomes operational, Kochi Port will be the first major port in the country to have a floating cement terminal,” said AV Ramana, Deputy Chairman of the port. He added that Sanghi Cements has similar facilities in the minor ports of Kutch and Navlakhi in Gujarat and Dharamtar in Maharashtra.

The port is also commissioning more automated cement bagging plants. Ambuja Cement, UltraTech Cement and Zuari Cements each operate units at the port and Penna Cement and Malabar Cements will set up bagging plants in November 2017 and March 2019 respectively. The total capacity of the five units is estimated to be around 3Mt/yr.

India: Sanghi Industries plans to raise US$180m towards increasing its production capacity. It has recently increased the production capacity at its Kutch cement plant by 1.2Mt/yr to 4.1Mt/yr, according to the Times of India. Following this the cement producer intends to increase its capacity to 8.1Mt/yr in the next three to four years. It plans to raise funds through a mix of internal accruals, debt and equity. The company is also building a 15MW waste heat recovery system that is likely to be commissioned by the end of 2018.

Another week and another massive Indian cement industry deal. This week Nirma has won the bidding for the assets of Lafarge India that LafargeHolcim is selling. Before we get too carried away though, the diversified conglomerate entered into a letter agreement with LafargeHolcim on 7 July 2016 to pay US$1.4bn for three cement plants and two grinding plants with a total cement production capacity of 11Mt/yr.

It is worth noting that this is only a letter agreement. LafargeHolcim signed one previously with Birla Corporation for some of the same assets in August 2015. Unfortunately, an ambiguous amendment to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) (MMDR) Act struck in January 2015 made it unclear how easily mineral rights could be transferred with an industrial plant sale. After much likely internal squabbling Lafarge India said it was selling all of its assets in January 2016 followed by threats of legal action by Birla.

Some commentators in the Indian media have flagged the new deal as expensive for Nirma. It will be paying US$127/t for the new capacity compared to the US$118/t that UltraTech Cement is offering Jaiprakash Associates for its laboured deal. The Nirma deal comprises integrated cement plants at Sonadih in Chattisgarh, Arasmeta in Chattisgarh and Chittorgarh in Rajasthan, and cement grinding plants at Jojobera in Jharkhand and Mejia, West Bengal. Other assets include 63 ready mix concrete plants, two aggregate plants and a blending unit.

However, unlike UltraTech, Nirma is a relatively new entrant in the cement industry. Its main industries are in detergents and soda ash manufacture. It invested US$194m in a 2.28Mt/yr cement plant in Rajasthan that was commissioned in November 2014. It also ran into environmental issues over a proposal to build a new cement plant at Mahuva in Gujarat. One report compiled under request by the Indian Supreme Court in 2011 cited the presence of Asiatic lions as a reason for concern!

Lions aside, Nirma may be paying over the odds for its new cement business but it will gain a bigger presence in the industry quickly and diversify from its other existing industries in which it faces fierce competition. The Lafarge India plants are mostly in eastern Indian states compared to Nirma’s plant in Rajasthan in the west, giving it a reasonable geographic spread.

Nirma reportedly plans to finance the purchase through a leveraged buyout and the Mint business newspaper has described this as the largest transaction of its kind in India to date. The risk here will be how the Indian cement market plays out in the short term. LafargeHolcim reported that its cement volumes fell in 2015, although this has since picked up in the first half of 2016. UltraTech did better in its 2015 – 2016 financial year but it reported a slow construction market. Longer-term demographic trends suggest that the cement industry will grow, especially in the east of the country. With this in mind it may be a while before Nirma’s cement business roars.