Shree Cement is closing in on 50Mta of cement production
This week it was announced that Shree Cement would enter the market of western India within the next six months. The company is preparing to open a new 2.5Mta grinding plant in Pune, Maharashtra with an investment of US$87.8m. The new plant will receive clinker from its plant in Kodla, Karnataka.
Shree Cement has been expected to go on a growth path. As recently as November 2019 it raised more than US$278.36m through a qualified institutional placement (QIP) offering, which was understood to fund capex and debt reduction.
To date, the company has built the majority of its cement capacity in six states across north and eastern India (Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh) but is now starting to expand its footprint to new regions. As of March 2019, the company had a domestic cement capacity of 37.9Mta with 4Mta of overseas production. This equates to a production capacity of 26.3Mta in northern India, 8.6Mta in western India and 3Mta in southern India.
Pune grinding project
The Pune project was awarded to Gebr Pfeiffer in the summer of 2019. The German supplier is installing an MVR600 C-6 vertical roller mill that can produce 300tph of OPC at a fineness of 3100cm2/g, according to Blaine, 300tph of PPC with 35 per cent fly ash at a fineness of 3500cm2/g or 180tph of GGBS at a fineness of 4500cm2/g. This mill is also equipped with a 6700kW drive unit and the order follows another 2.5Mta grinding plant for Shree Cement with the same mill type in Saraikela-Kharsawan district, Jharkhand, India.
The company has also been increasing its cement capacity in southwestern India where it commissioned a new 3Mta integrated plant in Kodla village, near Gulbarga, Karnataka in June 2018. The company's strong presence in east India was also improved with the start-up of the 3Mta grinding unit in Chandrabali Shyampura, Cuttack district, Odisha, which was commissioned at the end of 2019. Rajasthan also saw the entry of a 3.6Mta grinding plant for the company in Sri Ganganagar in February 2018.
Nearing 50Mta of group cement production
By June 2019 Chairman BG Bangur announced that the company's domestic cement capacity had reached 40.4Mta with the commissioning of the 2.5Mta Jharkhand plant, but with the addition of the investments in Odisha and Maharashtra, Shree Cement will surpass a total group cement capacity of 50Mta by September 2020. This will consist of 10 grinding units and four integrated plants in India, plus an overseas integrated plant.
The overseas expansion began in July 2018 with the acquisition of Union Cement Co in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE. This plant has a 4Mta cement capacity and has the biggest kiln in the UAE and is located just 1km from Saqr Port in Ras Al Khaimah, making it ideal for exports to India and the GCC countries.
Green energy investments
Investments by Shree Cement have also been seen in waste heat recovery (WHR) for the company with a new unit installed at the Karnataka cement plant in April 2019, while wind power generation of 21MW will also now improve clean energy supply to the plant. The two energy projects at Karnataka has seen the share of green power for the cement plant rise to 41 per cent of its total power consumption. Shree Cement now has the largest WHR-based power capacity outside of China in the cement sector at 186MW.
