Displaying items by tag: Sanghi

India: According to the Hindu Business Line, Sanghi Industries has installed a 1.2Mt/yr capacity grinding mill at its plant in Sanghipuram, Kutch. This increases the plants total capacity to 4.1Mt/yr. Sanghi Industries also plans to install a 15MW waste heat recovery system at the plant.

India: Sanghi Industries Limited will invest US$40.5m over next couple of years with a focus on sustainable development, innovation and energy conservation. The company plans to invest US$24.3m to develop a 15MW waste heat recovery system (WHR) and another US$16.2m to further develop its facilities at Navlakhi Port in Gujarat State.

Sanghi Industries has signed a contract for installation of a WHR system at its cement plant in Kutch, Gujarat, whereby 15MW of power will be generated from the waste gases released. With the technology, valuable fossil fuel savings will be made, foreign exchange costs will be saved and there will be a significant reduction in the emission of pollutant gases. Sanghi will recover more than 70% of the waste heat generated from its cement plant.

For the conservation of coastal soil, the company will undertake a mangrove plantation spread over 2km2 on the Gujarat coast. The initiative will protect the ecology of the coast and improve socio-economic development.

"Our focus is on increasing efficiencies at our manufacturing facilities as well as reducing our carbon footprint by cutting down on pollutants that affect the environment," said Alok Sanghi, director of Sanghi Industries. "Also, in line with the Ministry of Shipping agenda to increase transportation through the coastal sea rout, Sanghi has set up a terminal with an investment of US$8m at Navlakhi Port. We will invest an additional US$16m to further develop the terminal at Navlakhi as the sea route reduces our transportation cost considerably."

India: Reliance Mutual Fund has bought 3.26 million shares in Sanghi Industries for US$0.732/share via a bulk deal. Prior to the deal, Reliance Mutual Fund owned 71% of the shares, while institutions and non-institutions held 3.50% and 25.5% respectively.

India: According to the latest data from the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), the utilisation of hazardous waste as an alternative fuel and raw material (AFR) in cement kilns has increased by a factor of 35 since 2009 – 2010 from 15,693t/yr to 543,569t/yr in 2013 - 2014.

This follows the GPCB's measures to strike a balance between the disposal of toxic hazardous wastes, environmental protection and economic interests. Safe disposal of toxic hazardous waste posed a major challenge before the state pollution regulator took up disposal through cement kilns under controlled conditions.

In 2011 Gujarat State generated 109Bnt/yr of incinerable waste, 1107Bnt/yr of land-fillable waste and 577Bnt/yr of recyclable hazardous waste. These included plastic waste, spent carbon, tar, mixed waste liquid, pharmaceutical waste, tyre chips, agricultural waste, solid waste, chemical gypsum, iron sludge, copper slag and fly ash.

The GPCB encouraged major industrial clusters and cement plants to provide waste collection centres and pre-processing facilities for hazardous waste for co-processing. "It is a recovery of energy and material from waste," said Hardik Shah, member secretary of the GPCB. "The challenging task was to convince the top management of cement plants." The GPCB facilitated cement makers with access to its data on the waste generated in the State via Extended Green Node (XGN) software, which ensured the supply of suitable wastes.

"This involves some additional investment, but in the long run it repays as there are savings on fuel costs," said an Ambuja Cement spokesperson. Ambuja has invested US$16.7m to set up a pre-processing facility of solid/semi-solid waste at its Ambujanagar plant in Junagadh District, Gujarat State.

Similarly, Sanghi Industries is in the trial phase for using hazardous waste. "From a legal standpoint, we need to get clearance from the GPCB for co-processing any new waste material in our plant," said Alok Sanghi, director of Sanghi. "We have submitted the results of the trials conducted and are awaiting clearance from them." Sanghi has been doing trials for last 18 months.

"The use of alternative fuel in Indian cement industries has been limited," said GPCB's Shah. "The thermal substitution rate (TSR) in the cement industry is less than 1% in India as against 10% in Japan and 40% in European nations. The GPCB has set a target of three years to achieve a TSR of 10% by using AFR."

Zuari Cement's ground breaking of a new port-side packing terminal in Kochi, Kerala is the latest Indian cement news story with an eye on the sea. The Italcementi subsidiary's terminal won't be open until 2015 but the move shows that Indian producers are starting to tackle industry over-capacity through shipping lanes.

The Italcementi subsidiary holds two integrated cement plants and a grinding plant in Andhra Padesh and Tamil Nadu, two of India's biggest cement-producing states. In 2013 Italcementi reported that cement consumption fell for the first time in 10 years. Although Italcementi's cement and clinker sales rose by 1.6% in India in 2013, its revenue fell by 14% to Euro214m. Profit indicators like earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) also fell. Targeting Kerala, one of the country's smallest cement producing states (0.6Mt/yr in 2013), makes sense.

Zuari Cement isn't the only Indian cement producer with its eye on shipping or on Kerala. At the end of March 2014, Gujarat producer Sanghi Industries announced plans to invest US$25m in ships and sea terminals. It plans to acquire six vessels in the next five years. It is also in the process of setting up terminals at Navlakhi port in Gujarat and at Mumbai port in Maharashtra.

Sanghi has stated that its aims are to find new markets, reduce fuel costs and increase its distribution networks. In an interview with Alok Sanghi, the director of Sanghi Cement, for a forthcoming issue of Global Cement Magazine, Sanghi revealed that Kerala is one of the four markets the producer focuses on within India (alongside Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra).

Neighbouring Pakistan is no stranger to exporting its cement around the world. Frequent complaints from east and south African press and cement producers attest to this. However, this week's story about plans to build the country's first 'dirty cargo' terminal at Port Qasim, Karachi marks a change from the normal narrative.

According to a Pakistan cement producer who Global Cement interviewed earlier in 2014, coal is the most common fuel used to fire cement kilns following a shift from gas in recent years. Subsequently coal prices rose, leading to higher cement prices in the country. A new terminal with the capacity to handle 12Mt/yr of coal (growing to 20Mt/yr in a second phase of the build) could certainly help cut input prices for the industry.

The producer also mentioned that most of the coal that Pakistan currently uses is imported from Indonesia and South Africa. So, indirectly, the South African coal industry appears to be making money helping to make Pakistan cement that eventually arrives back in South Africa to undercut local cement producers! They say that market always finds a way. Ships certainly help.

India: Sanghi Industries Ltd (SIL) will invest US$41.8m in the next 18 months to increase its cement production capacity by 30%, to acquire ships and construct sea terminals.

Of the US$41.8m, SIL will use US$25.1m to acquire new ships and to construct new sea terminals and the remaining US$16.7m will be used to raise cement production capacity from 2.6Mt/yr to 3.5Mt/yr by the end of 2015.

"Currently, clinker production is higher than cement production at our plant. To correct the mismatch, we are investing US$16.7m to increase the grinding capacity. This will take 14 months before commissioning," said Alok Sanghi, SIL director. The debottlenecking will increase the grinding capacity by 30% of the Abdasa plant in Kutch.

SIL will acquire six vessels in the next five years for the transportation of its products into newer markets to reduce fuel costs and increase distribution capabilities. "We currently charter ships from market for distribution. We will acquire two vessels immediately and then two vessels every 18 months," added Sanghi.

SIL is also in the process of setting up terminals at Navlakhi port in Gujarat and at Mumbai port in Maharashtra. SIL exports 20% of its total production, mainly clinker to the Middle East, Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

SIL has invested over US$334m on the Abdasa plant that began production in 2003."We will have debts of US$75.1m by the end of the current financial year," added Sanghi.

Kenya: Cemtech, the Indian cement firm owned by the Sanghi Group, is set to build a 30MW coal power plant for its proposed cement plant in West Pokot County. Construction of the plant is expected to begin on 14 August 2013, according to the Kenyan newspaper Business Daily.

15MW of electrical energy is intended to run the operations of the proposed cement plant. The remaining 15MW will be sold to the Kenyan national power grid said the National Environment Management Authority (Nema).

The entire cement plant project is expected to cost US$175m. The plant is due for completion in 2015 and will have a cement production capacity of 1.5Mt/yr. Although centered on the Kenyan cement market the plant will also target Uganda and South Sudan.

India: Sanghi Industries has posted a 234% increase in net profit to US$7.65m for the third quarter of its 2012 – 2013 financial year, compared to US$2.28m for the same period in 2011 – 2012. Net sales remained stable at US$54.4m.

For the financial year to date, profit after tax rose to US$14.9m in 2012 – 2013 from a loss of US$3.98m in 2011 – 2012. Net sales rose by 17.3% to US$146m from US$124m.

Commenting on the financial performance of the company, director Alok Sanghi said that the company's strategy of diversifying sales to markets in Maharashtra and Rajasthan outside of its core market of Gujarat had begun to pay off as the company operated at near full capacity. Additional cost saving measures such as debt reduction, higher captive power generation and increasing utilisation of cheaper sea route for transport of cement had further boosted profit margins.

Kenya: Investors behind the US$148m plant in the Pokot region of Kenya have pledged to go ahead with construction, which has failed to take off 14 months after the ground-breaking ceremony. Directors have blamed the delay on various studies required before the investment.

“The Chinese contractors will be on the site soon,” said project director Rajeshkumar Rawal. “A general manager is already on the ground.” He rebuked industry talk that Indian plant builders Sanghi Cement had approached a local cement industry player insisting that local investors still held 26% of the stake with the Indian group taking the balance. Mr Rawal, a shareholder in the project, was in the thick of the battle to secure rights and licences for the project but he could not give a specific time frame promising more details in late August 2011 when Sanghi chiefs visit Kenya.

Some industry players have doubted the viability of setting up a factory in the remote area with poor infrastructure despite its proximity to the South Sudan which has strong potential for cement consumption.