JSW Cement Limited, the largest slag-based blended cement maker in South India, on Thursday said it was planning to double the capacity of two of its grinding units at Vijayanagar in Karnataka and Govil in Maharashtra from the present 1.2 million tonne as the market was looking up in the South as well as in Maharashtra.
The company operates a 4.8 million-tonne integrated cement plant at Nandyal in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh along with these two grinding units taking the total installed capacity to six million tonnes. However, the present capacity utilisation was in the range of 50-55 per cent owing to lower demand and surplus capacities faced by the cement industry in the South.
Pankaj Kulkarni, director JSW Cement Limited, said cement demand was expected to grow at 9 per cent year-on- year driven by major metros like Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Kochi and also on the back of higher governmental spending in the infrastructure sector.
Coinciding with its expectation for growth in demand for cement in the South, the company also launched a media promotion for use of slag-based blended cement among the consumers, who generally prefer Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) despite the claim of superior durability parameters of the former.
JSW uses the grinding units to blend the regular clinker with slag generated as a byproduct in the group’s steel plant.
The company accounts for seven per cent of the blended cement market in the the South and six per cent that of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, according to the company officials.
Going forward the company proposes to set up a second plant in Gulbarga, in Karnataka with a 3-million tonne clinker capacity.
“The Karnataka government had already allocated land bearing limestone reserves for the proposed plant though we are still in the process of securing mining leases and other clearances for the project,” Kulkarni said, adding this capacity would be built purely for the Maharashtra market in the next 2-3 years.
JSW CEO Anil Kumar Pillai said the Andhra Pradesh government had issued a notification allowing the use of slag-based blended cement in all kinds of constructions.
