Chennai-based Empee Sugars and Chemicals Limited (ESCL) on Tuesday said it would start commercial production at its Rs 515-crore integrated sugar complex in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu by February end.
The facility, coming up at Edaikkal village in Ambasamudram taluk, comprises a sugar factory with an initial crushing capacity of 5,000 tonnes per day, a 50-mega watt co-generation power plant and a 100,000-litre capacity alcohol/ethanol plant.
The project commenced in February last year and is now in final stages of completion. “We would start trial production from January 29 and go for commercial production by the end of next month,” said MP Purushothaman, chairman of Empee Group.
The project cost has been funded in the debt, equity ratio of 70:30.
“Once the plant goes on stream, it would add Rs 500 crore to our topline by 2011,” Purushothaman said.
The company would also look at expanding the crushing capacity to 8,000 tonnes a day in the third year from commencement with an additional investment of Rs 40 crore, added K Jayachandran, joint managing director of ESCL. It would crush about 300,000 tonnes of sugar by fiscal 2010.
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Jayachandran said the company’s captive power requirement would be 10 Mw a day in the peak season and 5 Mw during off season. “We have entered into a power purchase agreement with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) and have the option of selling excess power to third parties,” he added.
The company is selling power to TNEB at Rs 4.37 per unit and to Power Trading Corporation at Rs 5.90 per unit.