Aegis Logistics Promoters In Spread Plans

The Chandarias, promoters of Aegis Logistics (formerly known as Aegis Chemical Industries), plan to expand terminal facilities by setting up a liquid terminal in Haldia. The company is also in talks with the Jawaharlal Nehru Port to set up an import terminal.

At present, the company has 90,000 kilolitres of storage space in varying sizes of tanks and plans to expand capacity to 1.3 lakh kilolitres.

The company expects to invest around Rs 40 crore in these liquid cargo import handling facilities. The proposed terminals are expected to meet the major traffic growth in the petroleum sector once the government dismantles the administered pricing mechanism.

The company's liquid terminal division, at present, handles product categories such as petroleum, ethanol, chemicals and vegetable oils. The annual import handling capacity is expected to go up from the present level of 750 thousand tonnes to 2 million tonnes.

Since the proposed expansion entails huge capital expenditure, the company, at the 44th annual general meeting, sought shareholders approval to increase borrowing limits from Rs 30 crore to Rs 50 crore.

Aegis Logistics is considering plans to set up import handling terminals at various ports. It is implementing expansion strategies with the addition of more tank storage capacity and raising revenue per customer through more value added logistic services.

Further, the company expects to integrate its chemical distribution activities with the liquid terminal division and directly market a range of liquid chemicals.

Aegis Logistics offers services in the logistic sector for oil, gas and chemical products. The company's risk management division offers risk assessment and safety consultancy in association with Entec Ltd of the UK to various oil, gas and chemical industries.