Displaying items by tag: ACC

India: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has found seven cement companies guilty of bid rigging and cartelisation and imposed a total fine of nearly US$30m on them. The accused companies are Shree Cement, UltraTech Cement, Jaiprakash Associates, JK Cement, Ambuja Cements, ACC and JK Lakshmi Cement, according to the Times of India. The fines are based on 0.3% of each company’s average turnover for three financial years. Each company has also been ordered to cease and desist such behaviour.

The ruling relates to a tender floated by a Haryana state procurement agency in 2012 that the CCI started investigating in 2014. Evidence cited in the CCI’s order includes text messages and phone calls made between officials of the companies.

UltraTech Cement and Shree Cement have issued statements saying that they will appeal against the fine.

India: LafargeHolcim has increased its shareholding in Ambuja Cement and ACC via its subsidiary Holderind Investments. It now owns 63% of Ambuja Cement’s shares and 4.5% of ACC’s shares. The group will pay for the additional stakes in Indian Rupees. The impact on LafargeHolcim’s net debt will be Euro302m. It described India as one of LafargeHolcim’s key markets with solid long-term fundamentals and a clear potential for further improvement in business performance.

India: ACC has revealed that an appeal by cement producers to the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) against a fine imposed by the Competition Commission of India in August 2016 for alleged cartel activity has succeeded in negotiating the terms of the penalty. The COMPAT has ordered that the producers deposit 10% of the US$1bn fine in a similar manner to that of a fine levied in 2012. That fine was eventually dropped in 2014 with the CCI citing a lack of evidence.

Fines totalling US$1bn were levied on ACC, ACL, Binani, Century, India Cements, JK Cement, Lafarge, Ramco, UltraTech, Jaiprakash Associates and the Cement Manufacturers Association in late August 2016 for alleged cartelisation activity.

India: ACC has said that its new cement grinding plant at Sindri, Jharkhand will become operational in November 2016. This follows the start of commercial production of a new clinker production line at its plant at Jamul, Chhattisgarh in July 2016 and the start of that site’s grinding plant on 14 September 2016.

India: ACC plans to expand its plants at Jamul in Chhattisgarh and Sindri in Jharkhand as part of a US$447m capital project intended to increase the company's production capacity by 5Mt/yr to 35Mt/yr. The project will also include building a ‘couple of new plants’ according to comments made by KN Rao, Director - Energy and Environment, to the Hindu newspaper. Following the upgrades the Jmaul cement plant will have a clinker capacity of 2.79Mt/yr and a cement grinding capacity of 1.1Mt/yr. The Sindri unit will have a grinding capacity of 1.35Mt/yr.

India: ACC’s net profit after tax has risen by 26% year-on-year to US$69.3m in the first half of 2016 from US$55.1m in the same period in 2015. The cement producer’s sales revenue fell slightly to US$863m and its cement sales volumes rose by 3.8% to 12.48Mt from 12.02Mt. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim reported that it made an overall cost reduction of 9% in the second quarter of 2016 by optimising its fuel mix through higher rates of petcoke, by lowering costs of input materials such as slag, fly ash and gypsum and by improving its gypsum-mix optimisation.

India: LafargeHolcim has received the approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs to simplify its corporate structure. The transaction has already been approved by all other stakeholders, including independent directors, minority shareholders, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, stock exchanges and respective High Courts in India. LafargeHolcim is now awaiting formal communication from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board in order to close the transaction.

Through intragroup restructuring, LafargeHolcim will increase its shareholding in Ambuja to 61.14%. Ambuja, in turn, will acquire LafargeHolcim’s 50.05% stake in ACC Limited.

The transaction will be effected through a merger of Holcim India Private Ltd. (HIPL), a wholly owned financial holding subsidiary, with Ambuja. In a two-stage deal, Ambuja will first acquire, through a purchase, a 24% stake in HIPL for a cash consideration of US$521m, followed by a stock merger between HIPL and Ambuja. As part of the merger, LafargeHolcim will receive 584 million new equity shares of Ambuja resulting in an increase of its ownership in Ambuja from the current 50.28% to 61.14%.

India: ACC has started commercial production at its 2.79Mt/yr integrated cement plant at Jamul, Chhattisgarh. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim also has two new cement grinding plants, one at Jamul and one at Sindri in Jharkhand. These are expected to be commissioned by the end of September 2016. The projects are planned to strengthen the cement producer’s consumer base in east India.

India: Four contract workers have been injured by an explosion at an ACC cement plant in Sindri, Jharkhand. Sindri deputy superintendent of police Vikash Kumar Pandey told the Hindustan Times that a cylinder in the fine coal crusher plant exploded, probably due to extra pressure generated by the hot air generator attached to the crusher. The injured workers have been taken to Bokaro General Hospital where their conditions are said to be critical. ACC has stopped production at the plant to conduct a internal inquiry into the incident.

India: Beumer Group has supplied a HGBW-HC 1250 x 175.3m belt bucket elevator to the ACC cement plant in Wadi. Beumer says it is the highest such bucket elevator in the world with a distance of 175.3m between the centres. The size of this system enables a flow rate of around 600t/hour to be achieved, supported by high-strength steel wire belts. Previously Beumer has supplied bucket elevators with a height of 174m and 171m to ACC.