Dalmia Bharat managing director Puneet Dalmia characterised India’s cement industry as one of ‘many regions and many players’ in an interview on 10 August 2021. It is equally an industry of many plants – which are seemingly larger and more numerous by the week.
On 9 August 2021, Orient Cement announced an investment of US$215m to increase its Devapur, Telangana, cement plant’s capacity by 53% to 11.5Mt/yr from 7.5Mt/yr. Another Southeast Indian producer, Ramco Cements, plans to invest a total of US$135m in upgrades in the 2022 financial year; it completed US$53.9m (40%) of the planned investments in the first quarter alone. NCL Industries is planning a US$13.5m expansion of its 2.7Mt/yr Mattapalli, Telangana, cement plant by 33% to 3.6Mt/yr and the establishment of a new 0.66Mt/yr grinding plant at nearby Anakapalle for US$26.9m by 2022. Thus, a single state has at least 5.56Mt/yr-worth of new capacity in the pipeline with US$337m-worth of pending investments. If the central government grants the Telangana government’s 6 August 2021 request to reopen Cement Corporation of India’s Adilabad cement plant in the state, this will be joined by a further 4.0Mt/yr of ‘old’ capacity.
Nationally, investments in on-going cement plant projects total US$1.81bn. What is remarkable here is the continued drive to expand despite existing overcapacity. Puneet Dalmia estimates that Indian capacity utilisation will be 70% in 2021. Despite this, his company plans to increase its installed capacity by 17% to 36.0Mt/yr in the (current) 2022 financial year and by 57% to 48.5Mt/yr with the realisation of all on-going projects by the 2024 financial year, from 30.8Mt in August 2021. By 2030, the group aims to more than triple its installed capacity to over 110Mt/yr. Dalmia says that, if it is to achieve this, it will be not as another South and East Indian regional company, but a ‘pan-India, pure play cement producer.’
Dalmia’s confidence is founded on the belief that overcapacity will abate. His assurance is more than just that of an investor: when, in July 2021, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade established an advisory body, the Cement Industry Development Council (CIDC), to help tackle the oversupply issue, it appointed him as chair. Puneet Dalmia predicts that capacity utilisation will rise to 85% ‘within a few years’. Consolidation is key: over the same hazily defined time period, the top five producers’ 57% share of the cement market will rise to 65%, he believes. Rising fuel costs and restrictive limestone mining licencing will deter would-be cement plant start-ups; anticipated carbon costs should clear away a lot of old wood.
Demand is the other half of the coin in India’s attempt to pitch market forces against overcapacity. In the first quarter of the 2022 financial year, cement demand fell by an estimated 20% amid the Covid-19-led collapse of rural housing’s bagged cement uptake. This type of sales roughly accounts for a third of Indian cement consumption. Other construction segments have proved more resilient. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, never infrastructure-shy, chose to resume national projects after India’s Covid-19 lockdown ended on 10 May 2020, keeping them running through subsequent waves of the pandemic. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) continued with 480 projects covering 25,000km of road. In Andhra Pradesh, the state government is building 122,000 new homes. Cement producers have been able to corner pent-up demand to shift their stock at a generous margin.
The Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (CREDAI) claimed on 9 August 2021 that the price of cement is hampering the realisation of affordable housing targets, and lobbied the government to reduce the goods and services tax on cement to 18% from 28%. In parts of the country, state governments have taken the matter into their own hands. The Kerala government set out to take over 25% of the Keralan cement industry on 5 July 2021. Its plan: increasing cement production, a policy which it is already implementing via state-owned Malabar Cements and Travancore Cements.
Puneet Dalmia claimed on 10 August 2021 that India’s per-capita cement demand is 200kg/yr, corresponding to a total national demand of 276Mt/yr and 60% below the purported global average of 500kg/yr. Given India’s development trajectory, growth is nearly inevitable. Puneet Dalmia is unequivocal in his medium-term prediction: Indian cement revenues will rise at a rate of 9–10% per annum, outstripping forecast gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 2%.
Indian cement’s tale of rebound and growth is borne out in the latest financial reports. UltraTech Cement’s first-quarter sales in the 2021 financial year were US$1.59bn, up by 54% year-on-year from US$1.03bn in the first quarter of the 2020 financial year. Its cement sales rose by 47% in the period to 21.5Mt from 14.6Mt. In its 2021 first-half report, Ambuja Cements recorded year-on-year sales growth of 41%, to US$930m from US$659m, and cement sales growth of 36% to 13.5Mt from 9.95Mt. This is echoed both in the other Indian producers’ reports and internationally: France-based Vicat named India alongside its home country as an area of particular sales growth in the first half of 2021, especially in the second quarter.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s demonstration of the impacts of human activity on the climate in a report published on 9 August 2021 might lead an observer to ask “What’s the good?” in all this growth. In the face of the immense benefits cement offers to the lives of Indians, a more pertinent question would be “How best can growth happen?” Ambuja Cement’s aforementioned plan to grind clinker with fly ash is a step in the right direction. Another is Vedanta Aluminium’s proposed fly ash and bauxite residue supply deal, for which it is seeking a cement industry partner. The new Cement Industry Development Council’s remit extends to the coordination of the sector’s efforts towards maximising efficiency and eliminating waste. ACC and Ambuja Cements are participating in parent company Holcim’s Plants of Tomorrow programme, which aims to increase the efficiency of cement production through better plant optimisation, higher plant availability and a safer working environment. Dalmia Bharat has a goal of net zero CO2 cement production by 2040, and a plan for getting there.
Pan-Indian producers are on the rise. Big companies desperate to modernise and implement their models of sustainable growth are blazing a trail. The size gains will be a national marvel - if the promises of sustainability are realised. What will be lost is the Indian cement industry’s festival of local and regional producers. Though still an industry of many regions and many players, its regions are increasingly close together, its players increasingly few.