Phillips Carbon to invest Rs 350 cr over 2 years

Phillips Carbon Black has lined up an investment of Rs 350 crore to increase its total capacity to 460,000 tonnes over the next two years, a top official said on Wednesday.

Currently it produces 360,000 tonnes of carbon black annually.

"We would be adding 50,000 tonne capacity at our plant in Mundra for which the work has already started," Chairman Sanjiv Goenka told reporters.

"We are also going to set up another plant with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes the location for which is yet to be decided," Goenka said.

The Kolkata based firm which makes carbon black, an input for the tyre industry, expects the commercial operation in its proposed plant at Vietnam to commence during calendar 2012.

"The land acquisition is on full swing, we are expecting all the formalities to be completed over the next few weeks. So we expect the production to start by 2012," he said.

Earlier in 2010, Phillips Carbon entered into a joint venture to set up a 65,000-tonne carbon black plant in Vietnam with an investment of $63 million.

The firm recently raised Rs 99.2 crore through a share sale to institutions.

"Domestic demand for carbon black is going up as new projects by tyre companies are likely to go on stream over the next 12 to 15 months," Goenka said.

However, the company's profits have been affected due to increase in raw material costs during FY10 and hence prices of carbon black are likely to increase.

Earlier on Wednesday, Phillips Carbon had swung to a net profit of Rs 36.2 crore for the quarter ended March 31, compared with a net loss of Rs 57.1 crore a year ago.