Displaying items by tag: India

India: The Chettinad Cement Corporation has appointed SK Prabakar to the board of the company as the nominee director of Tamilnadu Industrial Investment Corporation (TIIC). Prabakar is already the chairman and managing director of the TIIC. He replaces MD Nasimuddin.

India: The Indian Cement Manufacturers' Association (CMA) has demanded a reduction in the excise duty for building materials from 12% to 6-8% in the next Indian Union Budget.

"To encourage cement industry and to bring it at par with other core and infrastructure industries, the excise duty rate be rationalised from 12% to 6-8%," said the CMA in a budget memorandum to the Finance Ministry. The CMA added that the excise duty rates on cement are amongst the highest, beaten only by the rates on luxury goods such as cars. It admitted that the Indian industry suffers from an 'excess of surplus capacity'.

"The levies and taxes on cement in India are far higher compared to those in countries of the Asia Pacific Region. Average tax on cement in the Asia Pacific Region is just 11.4%, with the highest levy of 20% being in Sri Lanka," said the CMA. According to the CMA the Indian cement industry had a production capacity of around 340Mt/yr in March 2012.

The CMA also pitched the idea of levying basic customs duty on imports of cement. Alternatively, it suggested that the import duties on goods required for manufacture of cement be abolished.

At present, the import of cement into India is freely allowed without having to pay basic customs duty. However, all the major inputs required for manufacturing cement - such as a limestone, gypsum, petcoke - attract customs duty.

India: Madras Cements has reported increased net sales of 18% in the third quarter of its 2012-2013 financial year. The Indian cement producer made US$137m in the quarter ending 31 December 2011 which rose to US$162m in the same quarter in 2012.

'Sustained focus on containing costs' and improving efficiency were responsible for the positive results according to the CEO of Madras Cements, A.V. Dharmakrishnan. The growth in sales revenue came despite a sixteen day strike by dealers in Kerala which constitutes nearly 25% of the company's market.

Net profit for the quarter ending 31 December 2012 rose year-on-year by 9% to US$15.6m from US$14.2m. Revenue for the company's cement segment rose by 18% to US$159m from US$135m.

Also of note in the producer's results was that transportation and handling costs rose by 37% year-on-year in the quarter to US$33.3m due to higher railway freight charges and a diesel price hike.

India: UltraTech Cement, a subsidiary of the Aditya Birla Group, has started a US$297m capacity expansion project with the help of International Finance Corporation (IFC), the multilateral lending arm of World Bank Group. About US$100m of the project comprises loans from the IFC.

The proposed project comprises a brown field expansion at UltraTech's operational integrated plant in Chhattisgarh and the investment for the necessary infrastructure to support the expansion. In a recent statement IFC said that the project is a key component of the company's cement capacity expansion strategy in the eastern part of India. Located on 389 hectares of land, existing operations were commissioned in 1995. The existing facilities and ongoing expansion include expanding the clinker capacity up to 6.5Mt/yr, the cement line up to 6.5Mt/yr and taking a coal-fired captive power plant up to 80MW.

Currently, UltraTech has 12 integrated cement manufacturing plants, 15 grinding units, five bulk terminals and more than 100 ready mix concrete plants spanning India, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka with a capacity of 52Mt/yr

India: South India's largest cement producer by volume, India Cements, has reported that its revenue fell by 54% to US$4.84m in the quarter ending on 31 December 2012. The producer reported US$10.4m in the same period in 2011.

However, the company's revenues rose by 14.82% to US$200m in the quarter. The company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBIDTA) remained steady at US$36.1m. .

"Considering the problems we had in the quarter the performance is good. Almost all costs went up sharply. For example, freight and handling costs are up 25% year-on-year," said vice chairman and managing director N Srinivasan. "For us, the EBIDTA is steady at around 18% sequentially when there was substantial drop in margins for competitions."

Srinivasan added that India Cements' expansion into many locations also helped to increase capacity utilisation in the quarter, which was about 70%. The company is looking at strong growth in some of the markets like Gujarat. It is also contemplating adding one more production line in its Mahi plant in Rajasthan, which currently has a capacity of 1.3Mt/yr. The proposed expansion may entail an investment of up to US$130m.

India: HeidelbergCement India has successfully completed and commissioned two projects in Damoh district in central India, with production starting today at both facilities. It has increased production at its Narsingarh, Madhya Pradesh, plant from 1.2Mt/yr to 3.1Mt/yr. In Imlai it has taken its cement capacity from 1Mt/yr to 2Mt/yr.

HeidelbergCement India said that the expanded capacity will enable the company to increase its market share in central India, where the company's brand 'mycem' is already a premium brand.

India: Heidelberg Cement India has received approval to set up a waste heat recovery (WHR) power plant at its clinker plant at Narsingarh, Damoh District in Madhya Pradesh. The proposed plant will produce approximately 12.15MW of power from the available waste heat of pyro-processing system of all three lines at the unit. The project cost is estimated to be in the range of US$26.9m to US$27.8m and it is expected to be operational in January 2015.

ACC's sales rose by around 2% year-on-year to US$505.6m as demand improved towards the end of the quarter. The company's earnings before interest, tax, deprecitaion and amortisation (EBITDA) were down to US$59.6m compared to US$83.1m in 2011.

Cost pressures are likely to remain high for ACC due to higher railway freight rates and interest costs. Going ahead, margins may improve on the back of price hike announced recently by cement companies.

India: Jaiprakash Associates has reported a more than 64% decline in standalone net profit at US$20.6m for its third quarter, which ended on 31 December 2012, as its interest burden increased by over 20%. For comparison, the Noida-based company had a net profit of US$57.4m in the third quarter of the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

Its net sales, however, were up by 15.3% to US$629.5m during the quarter compared to US$545.9m in the October-December period of the 2012 fiscal year. Revenues from the cement segment were up by nearly 7% to US$273.2m.

The company's total expenditure of US$521.8m amounted to nearly 83% of its net sales during the quarter. Its interest outgoings increased by 20.7% to US$98.7m. Its other income, mainly interest on deposits, also declined by nearly 36% to US$15.8m, impacting the company's financial results for the quarter.

A stark reminder came this week of the thankfully rare but potential risks of working in the cement industry. Five deaths were reported at Ambuja Cement's Bhatapara cement plant in India on 31 January 2013.

According to a press release Ambuja issued, the steel construction supporting a fly ash hopper located on top of a building, and connected to the cement mill, collapsed at the Bhatapara plant. Further details in local press reports added that about 200t of fly ash fell from a height of 15m. Five labourers and plant employees working at the site were buried under the debris and subsequently died. Four officials from the company have since been arrested and the plant closed while investigations are conducted.

Previously in January 2013 burn injuries were reported as another Ambuja cement plant, this time at Darlaghat. Eight workers received burns after a blast from a boiler unit.

However, despite these incidents the safety figures for Ambuja Cement and the other major Indian producers are high. In Ambuja Cement's 2011 sustainability report it recorded that its lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) was 1.04 for total employees and supervised workers. Its LTIFR has been dropping steadily since 2008, when it was 3.18.

This compares to other major Indian cement producers as follows. UltraTech Cement reported that its LTIFR for permanent employees was 0.82 in 2011-2012, a consistent drop year by year since 2008-2009. ACC reported that its LTIFR for its own and subcontracted employees was 0.31 in 2011. Shree Cement reported a LTIFR of 0.91 in 2010-2011 for employees and contractors. For international comparison the Mineral Products Association set a LTIFR target of 1.79 or lower for 2014 in the UK. Lafarge's global LTIFR in 2011 was 0.63 and Holcim's was 1.6.

An Ambuja's plant in Rajasthan picked up two national awards from the Government of India for Safety Performance in mid 2012. One was for first place for outstanding performance in Industrial Safety based on 'Lowest Average Frequent Rate'. The second was a runners-up prize for the category 'Accident Free Year'. Lafarge India, UltraTech, ACC and the other major producers all hold similar accolades. Sadly, any safety record is only as good as the shift that has just finished.