Nova to cross Rs 500 crore turnover by March

Despite the year starting on a bad note with a nation-wide strike in the powerloom sector, Nova Petrochemicals Ltd will cross a turnover of Rs 500 crore by the end of the fiscal year, Ved Prakash Chiripal, chairman of the Ahmedabad-based Nova Petrochemicals Ltd, the third largest producer of partially oriented yarn (POY) in the country, said.

Registering a turnover of Rs 423 crore at the end of the past fiscal year, the company posted a turnover of just Rs 79 crore in the first quarter of the current year on account of the powerloom strike.

However, it bounced back with a turnover of Rs 134 crore in the second quarter.

"Our turnover for the first half was Rs 213 crore, and we are sure this will cross Rs 500 crore with a gross profit exceeding Rs 50 crore, by the end of the year," Chiripal said.

The company commissioned its fully drawn yarn (FDY) facility last year and has expanded it to eight lines.

"Our new FDY facility at present has a capacity of 45 to 48 tonnes per day and this will be increased to between 55 and 60 tonnes per day by the end of the current fiscal year. We hope to increase our turnover by at least 25 per cent despite the disturbances in the first quarter," Shyam Gupta, managing director of NPL, said.

The FDY facility reduces the need of one process like texturising, and FDY can directly be used in production of fabrics.

Gupta said POY still continues to contribute the largest share of the company's income and with an excellent demand in Surat, the company will focus on technology expansion in the POY plant.

The company manufactured 35,481 metric tonnes of POY worth over Rs 251 crore in the past fiscal year.

"We will continue to concentrate on the POY segment even as the FDY section is being upgraded steadily," Gupta said. NPL officials said with installation of a captive power plant that began functioning since October, the company will be able to meet power requirements at a cheaper rate.

Being in the production of yarn, the company cannot afford a power failure as the yarn manufacturing process gets cut off.

The company used diesel generator sets for uninterrupted power supply before the 7.5 MW captive power plant became functional.

NPL has a manufacturing capacity for POY of 32,000 tonnes per annum, a capacity of 4,000 TPA for drawn texturised yarn, 10,000 tpa for drawn twisted yarn and 17,000 tpa for fully drawn yarn.

Not involved in exports of yarn, 90 per cent of all production of the company is used by powerlooms of Surat and surrounding areas.

The remaining ten per cent is used by looms in northern India, officials said.

Chiripal said despite the growing popularity of cotton garments, polyester garments will continue to be sold and the next decade has excellent business opportunities in the yarn manufacturing sector.