Displaying items by tag: India

India: Chettinad Cement Corporation is set to acquire Anjani Portland Cement. It will give the Chennai-based company a significant presence in the Andhra Pradesh market. No further details have been released. Anjani Cements has over 1.2Mt/yr production capacity from its two plants in Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh. It also has plans for setting up a greenfield unit in Karnataka.

India: Reliance Cement plans to construct a US$555m cement plant in Shimla district, which has now been approved by the Himachal Pradesh government. Reliance Cement proposes manufacturing cement and clinker at the plant, which will provide employment for 350 people and will be commissioned at Chaupal, Himachal Pradesh.

India: Trinetra Cement and Trishul Concrete Products Ltd, both of which are subsidiaries of India Cements Ltd (ICL), will be merged with ICL. The board of ICL met on 26 February 2014 and approved the amalgamation of the two subsidiaries with itself. The amalgamation is subject to regulatory and other approvals.

ICL holds a 61.22% stake in Trinetra, which has a paid-up capital of US$721,000 through its fully-owned subsidiary, ICL Financial Services Ltd. ICL has an 88.4% stake in Trishul Concrete, which has a paid-up capital of US$352,000 through its wholly-owned subsidiaries.

Under the scheme of amalgamation, the appointed date for the merger is 1 January 2014.

India: UltraTech Cement Ltd is in talks to buy Jaypee's cement assets in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, for US$644m, according to anonymous sources. This comes shortly after UltraTech's purchase of Jaypee's Gujarat cement plant.

For Jaypee, subsidiary of Jaiprakash Associates Ltd, the deal will be another effort towards trimming its US$8.54bn debt (as of 31 March 2013). The company sold 1.21km2 of land in Greater Noida to realty firm Gaursons India Ltd for US$241m in May 2013. Jaypee is also close to finalising the sale of two of its three operating hydroelectric projects to a consortium led by Abu Dhabi National Energy Co PJSC for at least US$1.5bn.

UltraTech's cement manufacturing capacity increased to 59Mt/yr from 54Mt/yr after it bought Jaypee's Gujarat plant. The company aims to increase its capacity to 70Mt/yr by 2015, according to Kailash Birla, senior executive president and chief financial officer of UltraTech. The Solan assets, if acquired, will add another 4Mt/yr of capacity. The grinding and blending unit and the cement plant in consideration have capacities of 2Mt/yr each.

India: The Himachal Pradesh cabinet has cancelled the allotment of a cement plant to Jaypee in Chamba district as the company failed to meet the extended deadline to start production.

Official sources said that the government was not satisfied with Jaypee's reply to a show cause notice. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the cancelled project was signed in February 2007.

The US$128m project with a proposed production capacity of 2Mt/yr was due to begin operations within five years after receiving clearance from the Environment Ministry. The plant was expected to provide direct employment to over 1000 people.

India: ACC's net income has fallen slightly to US$1.75bn in 2013. However its net profit rose by 3% to US$174m. By business segment, cement sales fell slightly to US$1.71bn in 2013. The Indian cement producer made the announcement in a statement of consolidated audited financial results. In its statement ACC made no provision for a US$180m fine imposed on it by the Competition Commission of India for alleged cartel-like behaviour as it believes it can successfully appeal the penalty.

Bhutan/India: Bhutan's Dungsam Cement has announced that it is targeting markets in the Indian states of North-Bengal and East Bihar. The subsidiary of the Royal Government of Bhutan sells cement currently under the brand name of Dragon Cement.

Dungsam Cement plans to sell 70 – 80% of its cement to the Indian market due to its high production capacity and its home nation's small market size. "We are producing 4130t/day. We obtained the necessary license to market cement in the Indian market in January 2014," said Dorji Norbu, Managing Director of Dungsam Cement to local media.

India: ACC has commissioned a cement blending unit at Padubidri in Udupi district.

An ACC company spokesman said that the unit uses fly-ash from the thermal power plant of Udupi Power Corporation in Udupi. The unit is capable of blending 30,000t/month of cement. Clinker from ACC's plant at Wadi in Gulbarga district is used for cement production at the blending unit in Udupi district. The Udupi plant caters to the cement requirements of Karnataka and Kerala states.

India: Ambuja Cements and ACC, the Indian arms of Holcim, are likely to see top-level management changes in the coming months. Managing director (MD) of Ambuja Cements, Onne van der Weijde and MD of ACC, Kuldip Kaura, have offered to resign, according to industry sources. Additionally, the sources revealed that Sumit Banerjee, the former MD of ACC who had quit to join Reliance Cement, is likely to re-join ACC as the MD.

The management changes at ACC and Ambuja Cements have resulted from restructuring of the parent company, Holcim, which has been underway since July 2013. Holcim has appointed Bernard Terver as the head of Asia, replacing Paul Hugentobler, who retired in February 2014. Terver, a member of the Holcim Executive Committee, has been appointed to head of a region that encompasses Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.

While van der Weijde is said to be unhappy with these management changes, Kaura is said to have been uncomfortable with the new structure, in which ACC will become a subsidiary of Ambuja Cements. Under the restructuring programme, an India management committee that is headed by van der Weijde, was to oversee the integration between the operations of Ambuja and ACC. The two MDs of Ambuja and ACC had to report to van der Weijde, which did not go down well with Kaura, according to unnamed sources. However, it's unlikely that Holcim will take any decision in haste, especially before the restructuring is approved by the Gujarat High Court, which is expected by April 2014.

Only after the court approval can Holcim receive full approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), as currently it is only a conditional approval that is subject to legal clearances. Any management change at this juncture will lead to a lot of questioning, which will put the spotlight back on the entire process.

India: Producers in the south of India have started exporting cement to Myanmar in response to depressed market conditions locally. Chettinad Cements, the India Cements, Dalmia Cements and Ramco Cements have all started shipping cement to Myanmar in the past few months, according to local media.

"We started shipments in January 2014 to Myanmar of about 10,000 - 12,000t. It is not very remunerative, but when the chips are down, we have do something to stay afloat," said Vipin Agarwal, CEO-south, Dalmia Cements. He added that producers make 'token' profits from this market but hope it will become profitable in the future. Dalmia transports its cement from Dalmiapuram in central Tamil Nadu to Tuticorin port for subsequent export. Ramco Cements also starting trialling cement exports to Myanmar in mid-2013, having shipped around 40,000t so far.

Agarwal said that demand in south India has continued to fall with growth in Karnataka, no change in Kerala and decreases in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Cement producers in the region are operating at 55% of their rated cement production capacities. Myanmar is the second export market that cement producers are testing, after Sri Lanka.