Displaying items by tag: Telangana

India: Keerthi Industries has started operation of a 2.24MW waste heat recovery unit at its Keerthi cement plant at Mellacheruvu, Nalgonda district in Telangana. The cement producer says that the upgrade cost US$3.9m to buy and install, according to local press. Keerthi Industries operates a 0.6Mt/yr cement plant.

India: Anjani Portland Cement has commissioned a 16MW coal powered captive power plant at its cement plant in Anjani Puram. The cement producer operates a 1.3Mt/yr plant and is a subsidiary of Chettinad Cement.

India: The Telangana state government has signed an agreement with 32 cement companies to procure 2.73Mt of cement to build residential housing. The government plans to build 260,000 double-bedroom houses for disadvantaged residents in the state, according to the Indo-Asian News Service. The Telangana Housing Corporation will implement the scheme.

India: The Heavy Industry Minister Anant Geete has arranged a meeting with officials of the Telangana state government and the Cement Corporation of India (CCI) to discuss the possibility of opening the closed CCI cement plant in Adilabad. The meeting will be held in June 2016 at Hyderabad or New Delhi, according the Hindu newspaper.

The meeting is the second occasion that ministers from Telangana have met with Geete to lobby for the reopening of the CCI plant. Options being considered include privatising the plant or retaining control by the government. The cement plant has a production capacity of 4Mt/yr.

India: Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) has decided to cut coal supplies to the cement industry as it prioritises thermal power plants in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Power companies in the two states use 66% of coal produced by SCCL. However, the plants have been unable to work to their full capacity in the second half of 2014 due to a shortage of coal, according to SCCL General Manager S Chandrasekhar.

The decease in coal supplies to the cement producers is expected to make prices rise. Local media reports that the coal from SCCL is more suitable for cement production than power generation as it has a high ash content of 35 – 40%. SCCL is also reported to have encountered several instances of 'misuse' of allocated coal by cement companies. 160,000t/day or 16% of the total coal production is currently allocated to the cement industry and another 6.6% is allocated to captive power plants run by cement companies.

India: Cement sales in September 2011 showed signs of a revival with monsoon weather subsiding in most parts of the country. However the ongoing unrest over the creation of a new state in Telangana have affected the despatches of ACC. In addition UltraTech Cement, one of the biggest producers in the country, has not yet announced its figures for the month.

Cement demand from the real estate sector has improved with many builders putting their projects on fast track to keep up their promise of timely delivery during the festival season. But there are no substantial developments in the infrastructure sector even as some government projects have been announced.

Analysts warn that it's too early to predict a recovery in cement demand because there is no marked improvement in the economic health of the country along with continuing unstable global developments from the US and Eurozone. With concern over rising input costs and increases in lending rates still lingering, cement companies have kept their production in check in order to align with the demand.

Besides transportation interruptions, the Telangana disruption has paralysed power supplies. Big cement factories have captive power plants but smaller cement units have been badly affected. The supply of coal from Andhra Pradesh was also hit, pushing up the cost of power production for captive plants that had to rely to a large extent on imported coal shipments.

V Srinivasan, a research analyst at Angel Broking, said that cement companies are expected to face margin pressures due to higher fuel costs because of increased domestic and international coal prices. The demand revival has helped cement companies to raise prices across the country, yet despite the rise, cement producers' profitability may be under pressure due to increasing costs.