Displaying items by tag: Jharkhand

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: Shree Cement has ordered a MVR 6000 C-6 mill from Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer. The mill will be used to grind cement at a grinding unit near Pune in the state of Maharashtra. No value for the order has been disclosed.

The new mill will be used to alternately produce 300t/hr of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) at a product fineness of 3100cm²/g acc. to Blaine or 300t/hr of Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC) containing as much as 35% of fly ash at a product fineness of 3500cm²/g acc. to Blaine or 180t/hr of ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS) at a product fineness of 4500 cm²/g acc. to Blaine. The mill will come equipped with a 6700kW drive.

Gebr. Pfeiffer SE will supply the core components of the mill and the gear unit from Europe and its Indian subsidiary, Gebr. Pfeiffer (India), will provide the components such as the housing of the mill and classifier, the steel foundation parts as well as the internal parts of the classifier. The Indian subsidiary will also design the plant layout and advise the customer on the equipment he will procure on his own.

Shree Cement has ordered 34 mills from Gebr. Pfeiffer previously. It has recently commissioned a grinding plant in Jharkand that also uses a mill supplied by Gebr. Pfeiffer.

India: The Jharkhand Industrial Area Development Authority (JIADA) has cancelled an allotment of land to UltraTech Cement for a project to build a 1.5Mt/yr plant. The cement producer was allotted 48 acres of land by JIADA in 2016, according to the Times of India. The industrial development body for the state government also sent notices to 20 other companies warning them that their allocations would be nullified. The action is being taken to free up land for development.

India: Three contract labourers have died at the ACC Sindri cement plant in Jharkhand. The labourers were working on a conveyor belt when it unexpectedly started running, according to the Pioneer newspaper. Other workers were also injured in the incident. A police investigation is underway.

India: The board of ACC has approved plans to build a new cement plant at Ametha, District Katnl in Madhya Pradesh. The unit will have a clinker production capacity of 3Mt/yr and a cement production capacity of 1Mt/yr. The subsidiary of Switzerland’s LafargeHolcim plans to expand a 1.6Mt/yr grinding plant at Tikaria, Uttar Pradesh and a 2.2Mt/yr grinding plant also in Uttar Pradesh. The board also agreed to build a 1.1Mt/yr grinding plant at an existing unit at Sindri in Jharkhand. The projects are expected to cost around US$417m.

India: Shree Cement plans to invest around US$140m towards building two grinding plants at Jharkhand and Odisha respectively. Both units will be supported by the company’s integrated plant at Chhattisgarh, according to the Press Trust of India. Each grinding plant will have a production capacity of around 2Mt/yr but this will vary depending on the type of cement produced.

The cement producer also started a new plant in Karnataka in late November 2018. It expects the site to take three years to ramp up production.

India: Nirma Group’s subsidiary Nuvoco Vistas plans to invest US$157m on captive power plants and waste heat recovery systems for three of its cement plants in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan. The cement producer plans to save around US$15m from the upgrades over the next two to three years, according to the Hindu newspaper. Nirma Group purchased three cement plants and two grinding plants from Lafarge India with a total production capacity of 11Mt/yr in 2016.

India: Ambuja Cement has launched Ambuja Compocem, a composite cement made from fly ash and slag. The product is being produced at its Chhattisgarh plant and it has been introduced to markets in Bihar and Jharkland. It is being marketed to all market segments including individual house builders, real estate developers and infrastructure projects.

“With the launch of Ambuja Compocem, we have achieved a three pronged sustainability approach by conserving natural resources, creating a greener product and fulfilling customer needs for a superior performance product. We call this approach delivering true value,” said Ambuja Cement’s managing director and chief executive officer Ajay Kapur.

India: Burnpur Cement plans to launch a new product PPC (Pozolona Portland Cement) from its Patratu plant in late April 2017. Following the launch the cement producer hopes to increase its capacity utilisation rate at the plant to 100%. Burnpur Cement operates two integrated cement plants in the east of the country.

India: ACC’s net sales have fallen by 4% year-on-year to US$1.63bn in 2016 from US$1.70bn in 2015. Sales volumes of cement fell by 2.7% to 23.0Mt from 23.6Mt and operating earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 7.5% to US$211m from US$229m. However, profit after tax rose by 2.7% to US$90m from US$87.5m. The company described the market conditions in 2016 as ‘challenging.’ It added that the economic slowdown following demonetisation was easing.

“The highlight of the year was strong cost saving measures, especially on fuel flexibility and raw materials. Focusing on our high quality, high performance product portfolio played an important role in the overall performance for the year. We are encouraged by the government's plans to invest in infrastructure," said Neeraj Akhoury, Managing Director and chief executive officer of ACC.

The cement producer’s 1.35Mt/yr grinding plant at Sindri, Jharkhand was commissioned at the end October 2016, joining a 2.79Mt/yr integrated plant at Jamul, Chhattisgarh which was commissioned earlier in 2016. The new plants are expected to strengthen ACC’s market presence in the east of the country.