Displaying items by tag: Orient Cement

India: Orient Cement, a CK Birla Group company, is in talks with cement companies to acquire a cement plant as part of a plan to triple its capacity from 5Mt/yr to 15Mt/yr by 2020.

"We are in strategic discussions with three players to acquire a cement plant with a capacity of up to 2Mt/yr," said Deepak Khetrapal, managing director and CEO of Orient Cement. He declined to name the companies, but added that the plant would be ideally located in Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh.

The expansion plan also involves setting up greenfield cement plants and expanding existing facilities. Orient Cement has set up a 3Mt/yr greenfield plant in Gulbarga, Karnataka, which will become operational shortly. The company also plans to open another greenfield plant in the next five years, according to Khetrapal.

Orient Cement has outlined a capital expenditure of around US$444m for the expansion plan, to be funded through internal accruals and debt. Currently the company operates in Telangana and three regions of Maharashtra: Khandesh, Vidarbha, Marathwada. The expansion will give Orient Cement access to markets in Karnataka and central India.

India: Orient Cement has appointed Sushil Gupta as chief financial officer following a meeting of its board of directors. Other appointments included Rahul Deshmukh as chief operating officer and S K Pandey as plant head of Devapur.

India: Legal metrology officials have conducted surprise checks on cement warehouses at Nacharam and Orient Cement facilities in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The officials registered six cases pertaining to various violations on 23 January 2013 and also suspended a district inspector from Adilabad for dereliction of duty.

Legal metrology representatives raided warehouses owned by Birla A1 Premium Orient Cement Ltd, Maha Shakti Cement and NCL Industries Ltd in Nacharam, Andhra Pradesh and found 50kg cement bags that were light by 20-1000g. Following the raids, the officials seized 8210 cement bags from three warehouses.

Also on 23 January 2013, metrology officials conducted searches on Orient Cement Industries in Adilabad, Andhra Pradesh. The officials registered cases for using packing machines without getting them verified by the department.

S Rajeshwar, district inspector of Adilabad, Andhra Pradesh state, was suspended for earlier visiting Orient Cement Industries and deliberately coming back without finding any violations.