ACC to expand Chaibasa cement plant capacity

The Associated Cement Companies Ltd (ACC) has started capacity expansion and modernisation of its Chaibasa plant, the first cement unit in the country built entirely by Indian engineers in 1947.

Arjun Munda, the chief minister of Jharkhand, inaugurated the modernisation and expansion project Chaibasa on July 21.

ACC officials told Business Standard that the project comprised replacement of the earlier plant which was based on the old wet process technology with a new state-of-the-art clinkering unit of 1.2 million tonne per annum (MTPA) together with a captive power plant of 15 MW.

The Chaibasa Cement Works were located in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.

It was only major industrial enterprise in that part of Jharkhand.

According to the officials, ACC would invest around Rs 300 crore for the expansion and modernisation of Chaibasa plant.

"The new Plant will be India's most modem cement plant using state-of-the-art technology, fully automated and equipped with the latest instrumentation and control system," an official said.

ACC stated in a communiqué to the stock exchanges that the Chaibasa plant was India's first wholly indigenous cement plant designed and built by engineers of the company in 1947, the year of India's Independence.

"It was the first Indian plant to produce Portland Slag Cement and has maintained the tradition of environment friendly practices," the communiqué added.

Incidentally, ACC was also planning to increase the capacity of Purulia-based Damodar Cement and Slag Ltd (DCSL).

The capacity would be increased by around 1.5 lakh ton in DSCL.

The combined capacity after the expansion will be 6.75 lakh ton.

"The entire new expansion will be based on use of fly-ash as raw material. The DCSL plant was currently using flakes from the steel companies like Tata Metaliks, as raw material but from now on it will use fly ash," said an official.

ACC's cement capacity will cross 5 million ton from the present level of 4.3 million ton in the eastern region after the expansion in Chaibasa.

The capacity at the unit was likely to be expanded further after this phase of expansion.

The sources informed that the production of cement in DSCL in 2004-05 had been the highest ever at 5 lakh ton against 4.66 lakh ton in 29003-04.

The capacity utilisation was almost 95.33 per cent.

DSCL has also witnessed a three fold increase in net profit from Rs 5.19 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 16.80 crore in 2004-05. The turnover also increased from Rs 107 crore to Rs 123 crore.