Displaying items by tag: Haryana

India: Nuvoco Vistas has commissioned a 1.2Mt/yr cement mill at its Haryana Bhiwani cement plant in Haryana. This expansion will help Nuvoco Vistas to raise its production volumes in Northern India and to diversify its product offering.

Managing director Jayakumar Krishnaswamy said “We are set to seize the opportunities. We continue to emphasise quality and innovation, and secure a larger market share in the North while retaining our leadership position in the East. On the ready-mix concrete end of the value chain, we have also commissioned five new plants in the current fiscal, bringing our total to 56 plants pan-India.”

India: Adani Cement has published its plans for the closure of two integrated cement plants in Himachal Pradesh. The Hindustan Times newspaper has reported the plants as ACC's 4.4Mt/yr Gagal cement plant in Bilaspur District and Ambuja Cements' 1.6Mt/yr Darlaghat cement plant in Solan District. The management of the Gagal cement plant said that losses ensuing from high operating costs, including transport costs, are the reason behind the decision to shut down that plant. ACC employs 1000 company staff and contractors at the site, and an additional 4000 truck drivers in its cement despatch operations. 3500 truck drivers also work in delivering cement from the Darlaghat cement plant. The Gagal cement plant alone reportedly despatches 5000t/day of cement for the Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab markets.

The Bilaspur District Truck Operators' Society said "The transport sector of Bilaspur is heavily dependent upon the Gagal cement plant. It's the source of livelihood for thousands of people, including operators, drivers and conductors. This decision should be reconsidered in the interest of the people." It added "Most roadside restaurants and mechanics' shops will also lose business. We never thought that this plant could ever stop functioning. It has been part of our landscape and economy for decades now."

India: Gensol has commissioned a 6.7MW captive solar power plant for Shree Cement’s Panipat plant in Haryana. The project is estimated to save over 9000t/yr of CO2 emissions. The cement producer acquired the 1.5Mt/yr cement grinding plant in 2015.

India: Nuvoco Vistas is promoting its products in Northern India with the launch of its Double Bull cement brand in the region. As part of the initiative it has increased its dealer network in the states of Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. It is also preparing to build a 1.2Mt/yr grinding plant at Bhiwani in Haryana to support its presence in the north of the country.

The cement producer manufactures Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), Portland Slag Cement (PSC), Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC) and Portland Composite Cement (PCC) products. Its flagship brands include the Concreto, Duraguard and Double Bull products.

Nirma Group won the auction for Emami Cement this week with an US$770m offer. The deal is subject to approval by the Competition Commission of India but it signals further consolidation for the Indian cement industry. It sets Nirma Group and its subsidiary Nuvoco Vistas in a strong position in Central, North and East regions of the country, if authorities agree to it.

Sometimes the press releases connected to corporate acquisitions can be accused of hyperbole but Nuvoco’s chairman Hiren Patel may be proved closer to reality than some when he said, “This acquisition is a momentous and transformational step in Nuvoco’s journey to becoming a major building materials company in India.” This is because Emami Cement operates one integrated cement plant in Risdah, Chhattisgarh and grinding units in Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha with a total installed capacity of 8.3Mt/yr. It also holds mining leases in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. Nuvoco Vistas runs four integrated plants in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and three grinding plants in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Haryana with a total installed capacity of around 15.2Mt/yr.

Put all of this together and Nuvoco Vistas has a capacity of 23.5Mt/yr. This may not make it a leader nationally, where it faces the likes of UltraTech Cement’s capacity of just under 110Mt/yr. Yet it does make the producer a serious player regionally in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Backing this up are five grinding plants in East India. Hence, Hiren Patel might not be exaggerating all that much.

It’s difficult to ascertain the valuation of this deal given the mixture of integrated and grinding capacity that was on sale. Altogether, for its total of US$770m, Nirma Group has agreed to pay around US$93/t. Like any deal there must have been some haggling going on given that the projected price for Emami Cement drifted downwards as the auction went on. Emami Cement’s owners reportedly valued the company at around US$1.2bn before the auction and were subsequently said to be looking for US$1bn. Later, local media said that UltraTech Cement was likely to submit an offer around US$0.94bn.

In the wider context of the Indian cement industry, the picture looks similar to when this column looked at the country as a whole in December 2019. Since then the November 2019 production figures have been released showing that cement production grew in the first 11 months of 2019, to 308Mt, but at a far slower rate than in 2018. A growth in production in November 2019 also broke a downward trend since August 2019. Adding to this growing sense of optimism, analysts ICRA were forecasting increasing profitability for cement producers in the 2020 financial year due to ‘benign’ input costs. If correct then Nirma Group will have picked a good time to expand.

India: Wonder Cement has launched a new 2Mt/yr grinding plant at Badnawar in Madhya Pradesh. It follows the company’s first grinding plant at Dhule in Maharashtra that was launched in mid-2018, according to the Pioneer newspaper. The cement producer plans to open a third grinding plant at Jhajjar in Haryana to reach a combined production capacity of 13Mt/yr in 2020. The new grinding units have a cost of US$112m.

India: GE Power India has been award a contract by Aravali Power worth US$107m for a flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) system. The contract is for design, engineering, civil work, supply, erection and commissioning of wet FGD systems along with auxiliaries like limestone and gypsum handling systems and wet stack on full turnkey basis.

Aravali Power is a joint venture company between NTPC, Haryana Power Generation Company and Indraprastha Power Generation Company. It operates a coal power station near Jharli, Jhajjar in Haryana with three 500MW units. An additional two 660MW units are planned for a future expansion project.

India: The Cement Corporation of India has started the sale of its non-operating Nayagaon plant in Madhya Pradesh. Prospective bidders are invited to submit an expression of interest by mid-April 2019, according to the Press Trust of India. The Nayagaon plant was originally shut in 1997 but its mining lease remains valid for two quarries until early 2024.

The state-owned cement producer operates plants at Rajban in Himachal Pradesh, Bokajan in Assam and Tandur in Telangana. It has closed down integrated plants at Mandhar in Chhattisgarh, Kurkunta in Karnataka, Akaltara in Chhattisgarh, Charkhi and Dadri in Haryana, Adilabad in Telangana and Nayagaon in Madhya Pradesh. It has also closed grinding plants at Delhi and Bhatinda in Punjab. The company is planning to sell its non-operating plants first before divesting the operational units.

India: The government of Haryana is investigating the transfer of around 122 acres belonging to the Associated Cement Companies’ (ACC) closed Bhupendra Cement plant to a Mumbai-based builder. According to Kalka MLA Latika Sharma, the land’s lease said it could only be used for industrial use, according to the Times of India newspaper. However, the builder it has been transferred to intends to build a town. Education minister Ram Bilas Sharma Sharma told the state congress that the Haryana Police had gathered ‘strong’ material on alleged irregularities in the entire issue and the government had decided to get the matter probed by the state vigilance bureau. The Bhupendra Cement plant at Surajpur near Pinjore was originally built in 1937. It was closed in 1997 on environmental grounds.

India: The Supreme Court has lifted a ban on petcoke and furnace oil to the cement and power industries in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The court also directed the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) to set regulations for the sale of petcoke and fix emission standards for thermal power plants, according to the Indo-Asian News Service agency. Representatives of the cement industry have welcomed the ruling. The Central Pollution Control Board and the MEF issued the ban following a directive from the Supreme Court in late October 2017 prohibiting industries in the three neighbouring states of Delhi from using the polluting fuels.