 "Arun Alagappan, executive chairman, Coromandel International")
Coromandel International, which is mainly in the fertiliser business, will invest Rs 1,000 crore to set up a plant to produce phosphoric and sulphuric acid at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh.
In a regulatory filing, the company said it has "commenced the project activity to set up its Phosphoric Acid-Sulphuric Acid complex facility at Kakinada".
The company's Executive Chairman Arun Alagappan participated in the groundbreaking ceremony on April 26.
"With an estimated outlay of Rs 1,000 crore, the project is expected to be commissioned in two years' time. The proposed 650 tonnes per day (tpd) phosphoric acid facility is designed with advanced DA-HF (Dihydrate Attack-Hemihydrate Filtration) process technology and automated DCS system," it said.
This will enhance backward integration capacities and provide stable supplies of phosphoric acid for its fertiliser manufacturing by replacing more than 50 per cent of the Kakinada plant's imported acid requirement.
The company also plans to set up a 1,800 TPD sulphuric acid plant to meet the captive needs in phosphoric acid manufacturing besides augmenting power from the waste heat generation. Phosphoric acid and sulphuric acid are used as key intermediates for manufacturing phosphatic fertilisers like DAP and NPKs.
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Currently, fertiliser plants at Visakhapatnam and Ennore are fully integrated with captive sulphuric and phosphoric acid facilities and the proposed expansion plan at Kakinada will also make this unit an integrated complex.
With a capacity of around 2 million tonnes, Coromandel's Kakinada plant is India's second largest phosphatic fertiliser facility and contributes close to 15 per cent of the nation's NPK fertiliser output.
Alagappan said, "This investment signifies a pivotal moment in Coromandel's journey towards strengthening its self-sufficiency goals in fertiliser manufacturing. Over the past few years, we have been building our upstream supply chain with investments in mining project and creating intermediate products' capacity at Visakhapatnam for Phosphoric and Sulphuric acid."
The company is also exploring investment support from the state and Central governments, which can improve the project viability and ensure supply security for key raw materials used in fertiliser manufacturing.
Coromandel International operates in two major segments: Nutrient and other allied businesses and Crop protection. These include fertiliser, crop protection, bio products, specialty nutrients and organic businesses.
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