Gujarat Alkalies hits record high; stock zooms 51% in one month

The company announced partial commencement of caustic evaporation unit (CEU) by its joint venture company GACL-NALCO Alkalies & Chemicals.

Shares of Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals (GACL) hit a record high of Rs 959, up 7 per cent on the BSE in Friday’s intra-day trade.

The stock has surged 12 per cent in the past two trading days after the company announced partial commencement of caustic evaporation unit (CEU) by its joint venture (JV) company GACL-NALCO Alkalies & Chemicals (GNAL). On Thursday, the stock had surpassed its previous high of Rs 932 touched in January 2018.

GNAL is a JV between GACL and National Aluminium Company (NALCO) formed to set up 800 TPD caustic soda plant along with a 130 MW captive power plant at Dahej. GNAL is a material subsidiary of the company.

GNAL has successfully completed the start-up of the 200 TPD (ton per day) CEU along with boiler and required utilities in the cogeneration captive power plant and has produced 100 MT caustic soda lye (rayon grade 47 per cent). The product has been filled in tankers and dispatched. With the above, the CEU unit has been partially commissioned, the company said in an exchange filing.

In the past one month, the stock has outperformed the market and rallied 51 per cent, as compared to a 5 per cent gain in the S&P BSE Sensex. In the last one year, it has zoomed 170 per cent, as against an 18 per cent rise in the benchmark index.

GACL deals in marketing of caustic soda (lye, flakes & prills), liquid chlorine, hydrochloric acid, chloromethanes, hydrogen peroxide, caustic potash (lye & flakes), among others. All the plants are integrated in such a way that part of finished product of one plant is consumed as a raw material in the other to produce further value added products.

The company, thus, enjoys some leverage over its competitors because of its integration philosophy. As a value addition to hydrochloric acid, the company had commissioned poly aluminum chloride (PAC) at its Vadodara (coelho) complex and therefore, the company is able to capture sizable domestic market for various grades of PAC. The export of PAC (powder) has also been increased, wherein realisations are promising, GACL had said in its FY21 annual report.

At 01:22 pm; the stock was up 6 per cent at Rs 949, as compared to a 0.55 per cent gain in the Sensex. A combined 2.3 million equity shares had changed hands on the counter on the NSE and BSE.