Displaying items by tag: Sagar Cements

India: The board of directors of Sagar Cements has approved investments in new cement plants in Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. It plans to invest US$21m in Satguru Cement towards building a new 1Mt/yr plant at Indore in Madhya Pradesh. The project will also include a waste heat recovery unit. The total cost of the project is US$60m. Sagar Cements will hold a 65% equity share in Satguru Cement upon completion.

In Odisha the company has approved an investment of US$15m in Jajpur Cements in Jajpur. This project will build a new 1.5Mt/yr cement plant. The project has a total budget of US$43m. It is subject to approval by the Government of Odisha and other regulatory authorities as required.

India: Sagar Cements has acquired two mini hydroelectric power plants from Sagar Power in Andhra Pradesh. One has a capacity of 4.3MW located at Guntur Branch Canal, Narasaraopet, Guntur District and the other has a capacity of 4MW located at Lock-in-sula, Atmakur, Kurnool District. No amount for the transaction has been disclosed. The cement producer operates two integrated cement plants and one grinding plant.

India: Sagar Cements has started generating power from a 6MW waste recovery unit at its Mattampally cement plant in the Nalgonda District of Telangana. The company’s board of directors approved the construction of the unit in March 2016.

India: Sagar Cements, India Cements and Bharathi Cements have continued to defend public concerns over cement pricing due to economic trends beyond their control. In a press conference the producers blamed rising input costs, distribution costs, taxes and high margins by dealers, according to the Times of India newspaper. They added that the key demand drivers for the industry are residential house building and government projects.

S Srikanth Reddy, Executive Director of Sagar Cements forecast that cement demand will rise by 10 – 18% in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over the next two to three years due to large government-run infrastructure projects. Tamil Nadu and Kerala are expected to rise by no more than 5% and Karnataka is expected to rise by 2 – 5%.

However, despite increases in the short term, the cement producers forecast problems for the industry in the south of the country, and in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in particular, due to production overcapacity as producers increased their installed capacity in anticipation of high demand. At present they say that producers are forced to run plants at 60% production utilisation rates with high volatility in price rates in a highly fragmented market with over 50 brands.

India: Sagar Cement has ordered a vertical roller mill from Gebr. Pfeiffer for grinding granulated blast-furnace slag and granulated blast-furnace slag cements. The mill will be used at a new 160t/hr slag grinding plant at the cement producer’s Bayyavaram Village unit near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. Delivery is scheduled to take place before the end of 2017. No price for the order has been disclosed.

The order is for a MVR 5000 C-4 mill equipped with a 4300kW-drive and four grinding rollers with active redundancy. The plant will grind granulated blast-furnace slag with a fineness of about 4,500 cm²/g acc. Blaine and it will also be able to grind composite cements from varying portions of granulated blast-furnace slag, fly ash and gypsum.

Core components of the mills, including the roller, tension system, grinding bowl and planetary gearbox, will be supplied from Europe. The mill foundation parts, the housing and the integrated high-efficiency classifier of the type SLS 4750 BC will be provided by Gebr. Pfeiffer India. The local subsidiary will also supply most of the equipment required to complete the grinding plant, including the plant fan and hot gas generator.

India: Sagar Cements is planning to raise funds to finance expansion of its cement grinding plant at Vizag in Andhra Pradesh as well as to set up a coal-fired power plant at its plant at Nalgonda in Telangana. A directors board meeting has been scheduled on 19 October 2016 to discuss proposals for the financing.

India: Sagar Cements has received approval to buy a cement grinding plant in Bayyavaram, Andhra Pradesh owned by Toshali Cements for US$8.9m. The sale is expected to be completed by 30 September 2016 subject to obtaining due diligence and other approvals.

Following the acquisition, Sagar Cements intends to increase the grinding plant’s production capacity to 3Mt/yr with an investment of up to US$0.89m. The new unit will enable Sagar Cements to reduce its logistical costs and introduce slag cement to markets in Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam and parts of Orissa.

India: Sagar Cements is in advanced talks to buy Jaypee Group's Andhra Cements. JSW Cement is another potential contender. The enterprise value of the deal is expected to be around US$162 – 169m, a steep discount of about 30% in comparison with recent cement deals.

Andhra Cements has two plants in Andhra Pradesh with a combined capacity of 2.6Mt/yr. It also has a 25MW captive power plant under construction. It had a debt of US$118m at the end of its 2015 fiscal year. If the deal transpires at US$162m, it will translate into an enterprise value of US$64/t of cement capacity. This is lower than the average valuations of US$100/t of the recent deals in the sector.

"We would like to clarify that, though the company does hold discussions internally now and then in an informal way on expanding its operations through organic and inorganic routes, no particular entity has yet been identified for a possible acquisition," said an Andhra Cements spokesperson.

For Sagar Cements, the deal presents several long-term synergies. The acquisition will enhance its current capacity of 3.8Mt/yr by 2.6Mt/yr. Secondly, Sagar Cements will add the capacity at a time when the creation of two new states, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, is expected to generate an incremental cement demand of 30Mt in the region in the next five years.

India: Sagar Cements produced 122,642t in September 2015, up by 7% from 114,693t in September 2014. Cement sales grew by 6% to 115,225t in September 2015 from 108,611t in September 2014.