Birla Corporation plans to expand cement plant capacity at West Bengal’s Durgapur

The cement major reported a 53% year-on-year fall in its consolidated net profit to Rs 65.77 crore in the first quarter ended June 30, from Rs 140.62 crore in the year-ago period. (Representative image)

Birla Corporation, the MP Birla Group flagship, on Friday said it was planning to expand existing capacity of grinding cement plant at West Bengal’s Durgapur by installing a cement grinding unit with an investment of Rs 72.57 crore.

“The board of directors of the company at their meeting held today approved the proposal to carry out the expansion of existing capacity of grinding cement plant at Durgapur by installing a cement grinding unit i.e. one cement mill (VRM) having cement capacity of 0.24 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). The capacity of grinding cement plant at Durgapur will increase to 1.54 MTPA after the above expansion,” the company said in a stock exchange filing.

“Demand of premium slag-based cement in the eastern region is expected to be robust. In view of the same, it is proposed to carry out the expansion of the existing capacity of grinding cement plant at Durgapur by installing one cement mill (VRM) having capacity of 0 .24 million tons per annum,” it added.

The cement major reported a 53% year-on-year fall in its consolidated net profit to Rs 65.77 crore in the first quarter ended June 30, from Rs 140.62 crore in the year-ago period. Its revenue from operations during the June quarter this fiscal also fell over 35% YoY at Rs 1221.97 crore compared with Rs 1883.81 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal, according to the BSE filing.

“Birla Corporation managed to protect realisation despite subdued demand and across the board inventory pile up. Realisation for the June quarter at Rs 4,906 per tonne was 0.5% lower than last year, mainly because of the soft prices prevailing in the East. The 5% drop in ebitda per tonne at Rs 981 for the June quarter was on account of low fixed cost absorption, low capacity utilisation and the adverse situation prevailing in some of the key markets of the company. Sudden lockdown in the third week of March had also led to pile up of inventory at the depots which was liquidated during the quarter,” the company said in a release.