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• Birla Corporation, the flagship of the MP Birla group of companies, plans to spend Rs 1,500-1,600 crore in capital expenditure to enhance its cement manufacturing and handling capacity and hike captive power generation capacity to support the expanded output.

• The company that operates primarily in east and north India is at present implementing a 1.2 million tonne per annum brownfield expansion project at Chittorgarh district in Rajasthan, which is expected to be commissioned by the end of this financial year, along with a 7 lakh tonne per annum expansion at its cement facility at Durgapur in West Bengal. “The capex for the next two years includes expansion of our cement capacity by setting up a coal washery at our Satna unit in Madhya Pradesh, setting up a 50 mw captive power plant at Chittorgarh and a 35 mw project at Satna,” a top company official told Financial Chronicle.

• The company plans to source petroleum coke from Reliance Industry’s Jamnagar refinery and IndianOil’s Panipat refinery, and import coal to run the Chittorgarh plant. To support its 1.73 mtpa cement plant in Madhya Pradesh, the company is setting up a coal washery, which will help improve calorific value of locally produced coal that contains many impurities. The washery is expected to be commissioned in the financial year 2012-2013.

• At its Durgapur cement manufacturing facilities, which have been plagued by low capacity utilisation, the company has invested in infrastructure for prompt dispatch of the produce, as transportation was the chief bottleneck in that region.

• “We have constructed a railway platform to enable loading of cement on rail rakes and have invested in loading machines that have significantly increased our capacity to dispatch goods,” the official said.The company is also in the process of signing a JV agreement with the Assam government to set up a 1 mt greenfield cement plant at Umrangsu in the North Cachar Hills district at a cost of Rs 450 crore through a joint venture company.

• The state government has agreed to provide limestone, which is one of the chief ingredients, required for cement manufacturing in lieu of a 26 per cent stake for the Assam Mineral Development Corporation and a facilitation fee per tonne of limestone. The JV will source coal for firing its cement kilns from the neighbouring Meghalaya.

• ”We have also set aside Rs 500 crore for acquisition of cement and power assets, which we feel will make sense for our shareholders,” the official said.

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