On the back of robust demand, Orissa-based OCL India Ltd is planning to double its cement production capacity for which it has chalked out a Rs 700 crore investment programme. "We are very bullish on the cement sector and therefore have decided to increase the capacity of our existing plant to 3.8 million tonne from 1.8Mt," said,OCL executive director (Finance) Rakesh Malhotra.

"We are working on how to finance the expansion plan. It could be a combination of equity, term loans and internal accruals," he said.
Elaborating further, Malhotra said that debt could be raised from domestic as well as overseas institutions. While on the equity side, he said "rights issue is one of the possibilities".

Post-expansion, the company is aiming to be the number one in the region, which has a total cement manufacturing capacity of 22.5Mta, Malhotra said. OCL, which also manufactures refractories and sponge iron, expects the cement business to account for 70 per cent of the overall revenue after expansion. Presently, cement contributes only 55 per cent, he added