Displaying items by tag: Dalmia Bharat

India: In the fourth quarter of the fiscal year ending 31 March 2020 Dalmia Bharat sold 5.17Mt of cement worth US$326m, down by 13% year-on-year from US$374m in the same period of the previous fiscal year. Net profit for the quarter was US$3.16m. The company said that the figure was “not comparable to the previous year’s fourth quarter profit of US$34.6 due to a change in reporting standards, according to the Press Trust of India. Full year net profit fell by 32% to US$31.3m from US$45.9m and revenues grew by 2% to US$1.27bn from US$1.25bn.

Under the current circumstances it’s not surprising to see how much Indian cement production fell in April 2020. Like many other countries, its lockdown measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak suppressed industrial output. Yet seeing an 86% year-on-year fall in the world’s second largest producer is shocking. Cement production declined to 4.1Mt from 29.2Mt. Further data shows, as part of the Indian government’s eight core industries, that steel and cement production suffered the most. Coal, crude oil, natural gas, petroleum refinery products, fertilisers and electricity generation all fell by far less.

Graph 1: Change in Indian cement production year-on-year (%). Source: Office of the Economic Adviser.

By comparison in China monthly cement output only fell around 30% at the peak of its outbreak. The difference is that China implemented a graduated lockdown nationally, with the toughest measures applied in Wuhan, the place the outbreak was first identified. As we reported in April 2020 demand for cement in Wuhan had fallen by around 80% at the time its lockdown ended. Production and demand are different, but India’s experience feels similar except that it’s on a national scale. The last time the country had a dip in cement production recently was in late 2016 when the government introduced its demonetisation measures and dented cement production growth rate (and national productivity) in the process.

UltraTech Cement, Orient Cement, Ambuja Cement, India Cement, Dalmia Bharat, JK Lakshmi Cement, Shree Cement and others all suspended operations to varying degrees in the first phase of the lockdown in late March 2020. Operations of industrial plants in rural areas was then cleared to restart in mid-April 2020, although subject to local permissions and social distancing rules, as the country’s lockdown zones took shape. All of this started to show in company results towards the end of March 2020 as sales started to be hit. The worst is yet to filter through to balance sheets.

March 2020 was a particularly bad time for the government to shut down cement plants because it is normally the month when annual construction work peaks. Cement production usually hits a high around the same time. The monsoon season then follows, reducing demand, giving producers a poor time to restart business. Credit ratings agency Care Ratings has forecast that capacity utilisation will drop to 45% in the 2020 – 2021 financial year. This follows a rate of 65 – 70% over the last six years with the exception of 2019- 2020, which was dragged down to 61% due to lockdown effects. On top of this labour issues are also expected to be a major issue to the sector returning to normality. The mass movement of workers back to their homes made world-wide news as India started its lockdown. Now they have to move back and Care Ratings thinks this is unlikely to complete until after the monsoon season, by September 2020. Hence, it doesn’t expect a partial recovery until the autumn, nor a full recovery until January 2021 at the earliest.

Not everybody is quite as gloomy though. HM Bangur, the managing director at Shree Cement recently told the Business Standard newspaper that he was expecting a rebound following the resumption of production in May 2020. He also reported a capacity utilisation rate of 60% at his company, higher than Care Rating’s prediction above, and he noted a difference between demand in rural areas and smaller cities (higher) compared to bigger cities (lower).

India is now pushing forward with plans to further unlock its containment measures to focus on the economy. However, daily reported news cases of coronavirus surpassed 8000 for the first time on Sunday 31 May 2020. How well its more relaxed lockdown rules will work won’t be seen for a few weeks. While this plays out we’ll end with quote from HM Bangur that will resonate with cement producers everywhere: “sales are imperative.”

India: Dalmia Bharat has donated US$262,000 to the Odisha Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to help people survive the coronavirus outbreak and lockdown. United News of India has reported that Dalmia Bharat has participated in extensive humanitarian efforts during the on-going pan-Indian coronavirus lockdown, including delivering a week’s groceries to 650 families in the Odisha town of Rajgangpur and dry food packets to 900 families in districts around its Biswali, Odisha plant. The group has cooked meals for 3000 people and arranged with local administrators to feed a further 8800. Dalmia Bharat has also opened its technical centres, guest houses and schools to medical authorities for use in treating coronavirus cases. Dalmia Bharat East regional manufacturing head Sunil Gupta said, “We are totally committed to supporting the national and state governments in their fight to contain the spread of COVID-19.”

India: Dalmia Bharat has suspended operations across its entire integrated cement production apparatus, equalling 26.5Mt/yr capacity, as of 26 March 2020. The move is a response to a government ordnance of 25 March 2020 imposing a 21-day lockdown on the whole of India due to the coronavirus. The company will implement the closure ‘until further notice,’ according to Mint News.

Dalmia Bharat CEO and managing director Mahendra Singhi said, “While cement production is continuous in nature and the plants have requisite permission from both the state and the central governments to operate with minimum employees during the lockdown, Dalmia Bharat will only carry out mandatory activities required for safety and security of the plants in the larger interest of its staff.”

Coronavirus had claimed 13 lives in India on 27 March 2020.

India: Several cement producers have responded to the coronavirus pandemic with plant closures. Reuters has reported that India Cements has temporarily closed all of its plants. JK Lakshmi Cement has suspended cement production at its 4.2Mt/yr integrated plant in Jaykaypuram, Rajasthan and at three grinding plants. JK Lakshmi subsidiary Udaipur Cement Works has shut its 1.6Mt/yr integrated Udaipur plant, also in Rajasthan.

Dalmia Bharat refractory production subsidiary Dalmia-OCL’s CEO Sameer Dagpaal told the Business Standard newspaper that he expected the virus’ impact on the company to be ‘relatively limited,’ with a slowdown in demand from the cement sector lasting at most ‘a couple of months.’ He noted that there had been ‘some minor supply-side disruptions relating to a shortage of raw materials from China.’

On 24 March 2020 the all-India total number of coronavirus cases crossed 500, with nine dead, according to Al Jazeera. 200 cases are in the western states of Maharashtra and Kerala.

India: Dalmia Cement (Bharat) has started producing oil well cement at its Khelrihat plant in Meghalaya. The subsidiary of Dalmia Bharat says that it is cement manufacturer to obtain a license for manufacturing oil well cement in the north east region of the country from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), according to the Economic Times newspaper. This new unit it intended to serve markets in Assam, Tripura and Mizoram, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Dalmia Bharat has been producing oil well cement at its Dalmiapuram plant in Tamil Nadu since the mid-1980s.

India: Integrated cement and grinding plants expansions by companies including Dalmia Bharat, JK Cement and Aditya Birla subsidiary UltraTech of an additional 23Mt/yr are set to bring India’s total installed cement capacity to 508Mt/yr by the end of 2020. Business Standard newspaper has reported that steady prices year-on-year and ‘softening input costs’ have facilitated the expansions in spite of a ‘flattish trend in industry-wide volume growth.’

India: Dalmia Bharat has successfully lobbied the Sundargarh, Orisha district government to request the inclusion of the company’s proposed 446 acre expansion to its Lanjiberna limestone and dolomite mine in the agenda of a village meeting in Kukuda, in which public opinion and suggestions will be recorded. The New India Express Newspaper has reported that, due to the special status of Kukuda as a Scheduled Tribal area, the village meeting forms a necessary preliminary step prior to district government permission of planned works. In October 2018, villagers in nearby Jhagarpur successfully blocked construction of Dalmia Bharat’s proposed Industrial Training Institute. The Lanjiberna mine will serve Dalmia Bharat’s 2.3Mt/yr integrated Rajgangpur plant, which was completed in 2019 at a cost of US$281m and awaits commissioning.

India: Dalmia Bharat CEO and managing director Mahendra Singhi will continue to serve as president of the Cement Manufacturers’ Association (CMA), a role to which he was previously appointed in December 2018. Signhi said, “Indian cement is working on low carbon technology map and remaining fully sustainable. I look forward to making 2020 an even more prolific year.” The Indian Express has reported that the new CMA vice president will be LafargeHolcim subsidiary ACC CEO and managing director Neeraj Akhouri.

India: Dalmia Cement (Bharat) and Dalmia Refractories plan to merge their refractory businesses. The subsidiaries of Dalmia Bharat have approved schemes of arrangement to consolidate under a single company known as Dalmia OCL. Dalmia OCL in turn will be held by a holding company known as Dalmia Bharat Refractories. The intention of the merger process is to create a single refractory company of ‘significant’ size, to simplify the corporate structure and to achieve economies of scale.