JSW cement to make its market debut

JSW Cement, the cement arm of JSW group controlled by Sajjan Jinadal, is set to commence production from its Nandyal plant in Andhra Pradesh from next month.

This is the first time JSW cement will sell in the market for wholesale and retail buyers. It currently caters only to ready mix concrete manufacturers. The company declined to reveal the pricing for the cement bags.

A group spokesperson said, “We are in the final stages of commissioning the state-of-the art integrated cement plant in Nandyal, Andhra Pradesh with a capacity of 4.4 million tonnes per annum. We have drawn plans to produce around two million tonnes in the current financial year. We are in the process of establishing our dealer network for the portland slag cement (PSC) product. The investment for this cement plant at Nandyal has been around Rs 1,400 crore.”

When first announced, the company had plans of putting up a 4.5 mtpa at a cost of Rs 1960 crore. The debt to equity ratio for the project is 1:3. The company had tied up with IDBI bank earlier to raise debt for the plant.

The spokesperson adds, “Production from Nandyal will cater to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Hyderabad. We will further extend our reach in the days ahead.”

Sources say the company is looking to venture into the East, which will include West Bengal and Orissa through port ways. Plans on the drawing board also include setting up of a cement unit in its upcoming steel plant in Salboni, in the West Medinipur district at a later stage.

An analyst from a domestic brokerage said, “JSW has clinker capacity in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The Nandyal plant is in the interior of Andhra Pradesh and it has already started trial productions. At present, the company is facing iron ore problems and has started buying from the spot market. So the final production numbers may be low depending upon the availability of ores and slag.”

JSW Cement is currently in the cement business to use slag, a waste product from steel manufacturing process produced in their Vijaynagar plant and produces PSC. It also has a grinding unit with a capacity of 6 lakh tones per annum at Toranagallu in Bellary district in Karnatka for manufacturing of Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS).

The official added, “We had invested Rs 136 crore at Toranagallu. Another Rs 53 crores capital expenditure is being incurred for enhancing the capacity at Toranagallu to 700,000 tonnes per annum. The GGBS manufactured at Toranagallu is supplied to all premier ready mix concrete manufacturers such as Lafarge, Ultratech, RMC India etc. The new cement plant at Nandyal will manufacture PSC.”