Inox group chalks out Rs 150 cr to manufacture wind turbines

Gujarat Fluorochemicals (GFL), India’s largest refrigeration gas producer and part of the $ 2 billion Inox group that has diversified interests in chemicals, engineering and entertainment, is all set to commission its Rs 150 crore turbine manufacturing facility in Una, Himachal Pradesh next month.

As a part of its wind power foray, the company has plans to invest Rs 6,000 crore over the next five years and is targeting to produce nearly 1000 mw of wind energy for which it will come up with wind farms in states like Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Kerala. "We are in the final stages of commissioning the turbine manufacturing facility that will produce around 300 turbines per annum. The assembly shop would be ready by December," said GFL's director and group head for corporate finance, Deepak Asher. The company has set up a separate subsidiary, Inox Wind Ltd for manufacturing the turbines. However, the wind farms would be managed by GFL itself.

Asher declined to give out further details about the project saying that a formal announcement on the company's wind power plans is expected in a couple of months.

GFL had already done a pilot project of 23.1 mw wind farm at Gude Panchgani, Maharashtra, with an agreement with the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) to supply power for 13 years with an investment of Rs 160 crore.

Meanwhile, the refrigeration major, has lined up investment worth Rs 500 crore to double its production capacity at the Dahej Chemical Complex. The investment has been funded through internal accruals. GFL initially set up its Dahej facility to manufacture upstream and downstream chemicals to widen its product portfolio, increase its cost competitiveness to climb up the value chain in its refrigerant business. This facility, that manufactures caustic soda, chlorine, chloromethanes, and poly tetra fluoro ethylene (PTFE , an advanced engineering plastic) was commissioned in stages between 2007 and 2008. The company has so far pumped in Rs 600 crore.

The current investment would increase its caustic soda capacity to 170,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) from 52,500 tpa now, its chloromethane capacity to 120,000 tpa from a current 60,000-70,000 tpa, and its PTFE capacity would go up from 6,000 tpa to 12500 tpa.

GFL plans to sell the caustic soda in the Indian and international markets, and transfer the entire chlorine produced to its chloromethane plant. The entire chloroform produced in its chloromethane plant will be used in its HCFC22 (a refrigerant) facility at Ranjitnagar. The entire HCFC22 produced will eventually be used in its PTFE plant. The engineering of this expansion activity has already commenced, and GFL expects the expansion to be commissioned within 2010.

"Nearly 70 per cent of the caustic soda production will be for exports", Asher said.

The company claimed that this investment will bring GFL's Dahej facility in the ranks of the only two or three global plants which are fully integrated from salt, gas and fluorspar, to make PTFE, an advanced engineering polymer, with a multitude of value-added applications across several industries.

This investment will also make GFL India’s largest producer of chloromethanes, HCFC22 and PTFE.