Two TRL units to hike capacity, turnover

Jamshedpur, May. 4, 2010 - Tata Refractories Ltd (TRL), a Tata Steel associate company, which had a year ago taken under its control the management of two refractory units at Hyderabad and Jhansi, now wants to see their capacities and contribution to the company's turnover go up.
The two units, Hyderabad-based Raasi Refractories Ltd and Jhansi-based Eastern Refractories Ltd had not been in the best of health when TRL stepped in last year by way of an agreement to manage the units and market their products on a revenue-sharing basis, without getting into their equity.
TRL Hyderabad and TRL Jhansi as they are called now, had in 2009-10 contributed to TRL's turnover to the tune of around Rs 11 crore and Rs 8 crore respectively.
"Right now we are planning to increase the production in these two plants; we have a plan for TRL Jhansi to reach (a turnover of) Rs 25 crore while TRL Hyderabad is to reach Rs 50 crore this year; we are revamping the plants and adding capacity," said Dr Arup K Chattopadhyay, managing director, TRL, adding that the investment for hiking capacity of the respective plants would be done by the present owners of the units.
According to the plan, while TRL Hyderabad would see hiking of capacity from the present around 30,000 tpa to 50,000 tpa, TRL Jhansi's capacity is likely to go up from its 15,000-18,000 tpa range today to 25,000 tpa.
"The investment to be made in the respective plants would, depending on market conditions, keep increasing," said Dr Chattopadhyay.
On TRL's mineral needs in the future, the company sources its quartzite needs from its own mines in Chhuinpali (Orissa) while it buys dolomite from a Bhutan-based supplier with whom the company has a long-term agreement.
"We are looking for further sources of quartzite and dolomite; in fact lot of R&D/plant trials are taking place with dolomite from Sagar (in MP) to examine its suitability," said Dr Chattopadhyay.
TRL is also examining the quality of the quartzite available in the Raigarh area of Chhatisgarh.
Unlike steel industry which can afford to use quartzite of not so high purity, the refractory industry needs the mineral (quartzite) of an extremely high quality.
Finding the right type of mineral is a long-drawn process and only when the mineral is found suitable will TRL think of acquiring the mines, said the company.