HeidelbergCement confirmed yesterday that it has successfully completed the expansion of its clinker and cement grinding capacity in Central India.
The plants are located in Damoh district (Narsingarh and Imlai facilities) in Madhya Pradesh and in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh. Trial runs of the expanded plants were successfully conducted between November 2012 and January 2013 and the production capacities were now officially commissioned. Capital expenditure for the project amounted to €216m.
With the expansion, clinker production of the Narsingarh production site rises from 1.2 to 3.1Mta. A 20km long overland belt conveyor – one of the longest in India – has been built to transport limestone from the quarry to the Narsingarh facility.
Annual cement grinding capacity of the Imlai plant was been lifted from 1Mta to 2Mta and at the Jhansi plant from 0.8Mta to 2.7Mta. Clinker for both cement grinding plants is supplied by Narsingarh unit.
HeidelbergCement India Ltd operates two integrated cement and two cement grinding plants in Central, Western and Southern India. The expansion of the plants has now increased HeidelbergCement India’s cement capacity from 3.1Mta to 6Mta.
“The commissioning of new cement capacities in Central India is an important milestone of our strategy of focusing on expanding our clinker and cement capacities in fast growing emerging markets.” said Dr Bernd Scheifele, Chairman of the Managing Board of HeidelbergCement.
“Cement demand in India has been growing consistently at about 6-8 per cent for the last two years and we expect it to further increase in the coming years. We understand that the Indian Government will be investing US$1trn in infrastructure projects over the next five years which will fuel the growth in the country,” he added.
