Phillips Carbon Black lines up Rs 800 crore investment to up capacity

After posting its best-ever quarterly results in the second quarter of the current fiscal year when net profits surged past 300 per cent at Rs 50.78 crore, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group owned Phillips Carbon Black Ltd (PCBL) has earmarked at least Rs 800 crore to further its production capacity.

As part of its brownfield expansion plan, the company will be investing Rs 300 crore over the next 12 months to up its production capacity by 80,000 tonne in Mundra and Palej plants in Gujarat. In a second, PCBL will be coming up with a greenfield plant with an expected 1,20,000 tonne capacity in south India where an investment of Rs. 500-600 crore will be made.

Goenka said states like Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Tamil Nadu is under consideration for the greenfield project and the deal may be finalised in the next couple of months.

The present installed capacity at PCBL is 4.72 lakh tonne and the capacity utilisation stands at 99 per cent.

"Growth in the tyre business is expected to be around 5-6 per cent and thus a similar growth is expected in the carbon black business as well", he said adding that the final investment in this plant will depend on land and the actual size of the plant.

The Group already has a 120 acre plot in Tamil Nadu but Goenka said that the Telengana government has offered him a "sweetheart deal". He, however, did not detail on the Telengana offer except stating some sort of arrangement can be worked out with the Krishnapatanam port there.

This new plant will majorly focus on rubber black which is used in tyres but speciality blacks, which PCBL has been focusing on lately and offers huge margins will also be manufactured.

The official expects speciality blacks to contribute at least nine per cent of the sales volume at the year-end, from the current contribution of five per cent.

With revenues soaring by 25 per cent in the first half of the 2017-18 fiscal year at Rs. 1240.06 crore, Goenka now wants to reduce the outstanding debt of Rs. 1,200 crore to Rs. 700 crore by the end of the ongoing fiscal year.

For the quarter ended September 30, 2017. PCBL's net income rose by 17.4 per cent at Rs. 597.58 crore against the earning of Rs. 508.93 crore in the year-ago period.