This week, JSW Cement announced that its new 1Mta clinker production unit in Fujairah, UAE, is expected to be on-stream in January 2020. The project will enable JSW Cement to transfer clinker from UAE to Mumbai, where it will complete the finish grinding for the Indian market.
The Dolvi plant is the company's closest plant to Mumbai, being situated just to the south in Raigad district. However, originally it was only equipped with a single 72tph UBE VRM and had a grinding capacity of 1Mta. To receive and grind clinker from the UAE works, it had to increase its grinding capacity, a project which the company started in 2018. JSW Cement embarked on a two-stage investment plan. The first phase saw the Dolvi plant increase grinding capacity to 2.2Mta in February 2019, lifting the company's total installed capacity to 12.6Mta. The second stage involves a US$206.6m investment to raise the plant's grinding capacity to 4.5Mta.
The need for limestone reserves is acute in India. JSW Cement has secured 125Mt of limestone in Kachchh district, Gujarat in the west part of India, but it needs to import clinker for its operations near Mumbai.
Rapid growth
JSW Cement has grown quickly since starting operations at its two manufacturing units at Vijaynagar and entered the Indian cement market in 2009. The company grew out of the JSW Group's development of steel production and the opportunity for slag grinding. The steel division has 18Mta of steel production capacity.
The Vijaynagar units in Bellary district, Karnataka, have a combined capacity of 3.4Mta and use a Loesche VRM to produce Portland slag cement and ground granulated blastfurnace slag. The site was upgraded with a 2.4Mta KHD Humboldt roller press expansion in 2018.
JSW Cement's Salboni plant, near the border with Bangladesh, is the newest plant in the group and was opened in 2017 with a cement capacity of 2.4Mta. It is equipped with two 90tph KHD roller presses, one roller press grinds the slag while the other is for clinker grinding. The plant is currently undergoing a 1.2Mta expansion and will also have a new 18MW power plant built.
In 2017 JSW Cement also expanded its operations through the acquisition of the 1.3Mta integrated Shiva Cement plant. In addition, the Nandyal works produces 2.2Mta of clinker and 4.8Mta of cement in Bilakalaguduru village, near Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh.
New expansion plans
Further JSW Cement plants under construction are the Jajpur grinding unit in Odisha which will add 1.2Mta cement grinding capacity by September 2020. The Kocki grinding unit is a 0.45Mta greenfield project in Kerala state. Finally, the Chennai grinding unit is a similar 0.45Mta grinding plant planned for Tamil Nadu.
Funding the expansions is largely to be covered by an initial public offering (IPO). The launch of the IPO was planned for 2020 when the company has reached 20Mta of cement capacity, but in November 2019 it was moved back to December 2021.
The company also announced further plans to raise its cement capacity to 25Mta by 2023. Among the 2023 expansions will be the Shiva Cement plant and capacity additions to raise production capacity in the east from 5Mta to 9Mta.
"This capacity addition is part of a plan to rank among the top five cement companies in India," said Parth Jindal, JSW Cement managing director. "The company is currently the ninth largest cement maker in India by capacity. The capacity expansion will require a total investment of close to INR29,000m (US$404.5m), which the company plans to raise through a combination of internal accruals and debt."