Displaying items by tag: India
OCL India to build new plant
21 May 2018India: Dalmia Bharat's subsidiary OCL India plans to build a new cement plant in Odisha. The new unit will have a production capacity of around 1.7Mt/yr and it will include a waste heat recovery system. It will bring the cement producer’s total cement capacity up to around 8Mt/yr in the states of Odisha and West Bengal. The project is estimated to cost around US$545m. The plant is expected to be completed by mid-2020.
India: Jaiprakash Associates’ sales have nearly halved following the sale of much of its cement business to UltraTech Cement in mid-2017. Its sales dropped to US$1.14bn in the year to the end of March 2018 from US$2.19bn in the same period in 2017. The company said that its annual results were not comparable due to the sale of six integrated cement plants and five grinding plants.
Birla Corporation’s sales rise
17 May 2018India: Birla Corporation has overcome sand supply issues to see its sales and cement volumes rise in its financial year to the end of March 2018. The group overcame a restriction on sand mining in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the first nine months of the year, according to the United News of India. Its sales revenue grew by 19% year-on-year to US$878m from US$736m. Its cement sales volumes rose by 23% to 12.4Mt from 10Mt. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 14% to US$128m from US$113m.
Shree Digvijay Cement appoints Vikas Kumar
16 May 2018India: Shree Digvijay Cement has appointed Vikas Kumar as its chief financial officer with effect from 1 May 2018. He succeeds MV Ramaswamy who has resigned from the company.
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.
Bangladesh: LafargeHolcim Bangladesh has replaced the belt of a 17km conveyor that transports limestone from a quarry in Meghalaya in India to its Surma cement plant in Bangladesh. The upgrade project was carried out in two phases with the latest finished in mid-April 2018, according to the Daily Star newspaper. The belt was replaced to reduce noise from the system. It was first built in 2004.
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.
Fake cement bagging operation raided in Odisha
08 May 2018India: Police have raided a factory near Cuttack, Odisha that has allegedly been selling repackaged cement. The unit purchased the franchise of a well-known cement brand and then used cement from damaged bags of the consignment to prepare unapproved mixtures, according to Odisha TV. The cement was then repackaged and supplied along with the original cement packets.
Up to 7500 fake cement bags, 300 bags of different cement brands and machinery was seized during the raid. The owner of the factory, Lalit Kumar Jain, was also arrested. He has disputed the allegations.
National Company Law Tribunal asks Binani Cement creditors to consider offer from UltraTech Cement
03 May 2018India: The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has asked the Committee of Creditors (COC) of Binani Cement to consider UltraTech Cement's revised offer. It has also set 24 June 2018 as the completion deadline of the insolvency resolution process, according to the Press Trust of India. The NCLT also asked the COC to reconsider the resolution plan of Rajputana Properties if the subsidiary of Dalmia Bharat Group was willing to raise its offer over UltraTech Cement’s.
A consortium led by Dalmia Bharat won an auction for Binani Cement with a bid of US$974m in early March 2018. UltraTech Cement then made a direct bid to Binani Cement a few weeks later. However, the Supreme Court blocked UltraTech Cement’s offer in mid-April 2018. UltraTech Cement has since made a raised offer to the resolution professional handling the insolvency process of Binani Cement.
India: The state government of Uttar Pradesh has identified land on which Jaiprakash Associates will have to plant a plantation as a penalty for conducting mining in a forest. The decision follows a National Green Tribunal order in 2016, according to the Times of India newspaper. UltraTech Cement purchased the Dalla plant from Jaiprakash Associates in 2017 but it has been unable to use the site fully due to legal issues. It will be able to use the site fully once the conditions of the government proposal have been completed. Other conditions of the government deal will force Jaiprakash Associates to pay four times the actual cost of land for its acquisition and to maintain the plantation for 10 years.