Emami Cement, an arm of the Rs 50,000-crore Emami Group, has commissioned its Rs 700-crore, 2 million tonne per annum (mtpa) cement grinding plant at Panagarh in Burdwan, West Bengal.
The plant, commissioned within 13 months of the zero date, is part of a 5.5 mtpa integrated cement unit, comprising a central clinkerisation plant and a grinding unit at Risda in Balodabazar district, Chhattisgarh. A separate grinding unit, with a capacity 1.8 mtpa, is coming up in Orissa, at nearly Rs 3,500 crore investment.
The clinker for the Panagarh plant is being sourced from the company’s captive limestone mines in Chhattisgarh, top company officials said.
The Panagarh unit, a fully automated unit designed on zero discharge concepts in association with FL Smidth (Denmark) & GEBR Pfieffer (Germany), will produce the complete range of OPC (ordinary Portland cement), PPC (Portland pozzolana cement) and PSC (Portland slag cement) variants of cement under the “Emami Double Bull” brand name.
“We feel that this sector has strong entry barriers, and the individual household consumption rate is very high at around 70 per cent, thus, offering us a lot of potential to grow. We are hopeful of becoming a 15-20 mtpa player within the next three-five years,” said Aditya Vardhan Agarwal, director, Emami Group.
The Panagarh plant would be producing all variants of premium quality cement under the same brand and would be catering primarily the customers from West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and other markets of east India.
ritwikmukherjee@mydigitalfc.com
