Madras Cements to develop beneficiation plant, India

Madras Cements is developing a limestone beneficiation plant at Alathiyur in Tamil Nadu with a capacity of 400tpd. The company will set up this plant near its 3Mta  cement plant at Alathiyur. The plant will help the company to upgrade cement raw material resources and extend the life of limestone mines.

Once Madras Cements commissions the beneficiation unit, it will establish similar facilities at other plants, according to AV Dharmakrishnan, CEO of Madras Cements.

Once the beneficiation plant is in place, the low-grade limestone will be processed to remove excess contaminant and upgraded with just 12.5 per cent silicon dioxide. The cement plant will simply use equal quantities of beneficiated and high grade limestone. The company will be able to avoid wastage of huge quantities of natural mineral resource and extend the life of the limestone quarry, Dharmakrishnan said.

The company has a total annual capacity of about 13Mta of cement capacity across five plants distributed across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.