JSW Cement to invest Rs 2,875 cr in doubling production to 25 MTPA

JSW Cement is aiming to nearly double its production capacity to 25 million tonnes per annum by 2023 by investing around Rs 2,875 crore and be among top five cement makers.

The investment would fund the expansion plans through a combination of debt and internal accruals, JSW Cement, part of $14 billion JSW Group, said in a statement.

The company is planning to expand manufacturing capacity at its Odisha-based subsidiary Shiva Cement. It is also looking at ramping up capacity at its other units to reach the target.

"As part of our strategy to play a significant role in India's infrastructure growth story, we are revising our overall cement capacity targets to 25 MTPA by 2023," said JSW Cement Managing Director Parth Jindal.

According to him, after completion of the capacity expansion, JSW Cement will be among top 5 Indian cement companies.

The company's current capacity is 14 MTPA.

"JSW Cement's aggressive ramp up in capacity will entail a capex investment of approximately Rs 2,875 crore (including the planned capex at Shiva Cement)," the company said.

The company, which supplies cement to various infrastructure projects including Mumbai Metro, Kolkata Metro Rail, Coal India Project, AP State Housing Projects, among others, is sensing growth opportunity in the Portland Slag Cement (PSC).

"The growth opportunity for PSC is visible in the number of infrastructure projects that now uses JSW's PSC across India," it said adding the company is becoming a preferred green cement supplier for most of these projects.

According to the statement, in the South, JSW Cement plans to add 3.6 MTPA capacity to take its overall green cement capacity to 11.6 MTPA.

In the West, JSW Cement plans to add 2.4 MTPA taking its overall cement capacity to 4.6 MTPA.

In eastern India, it is adding the largest chunk of production capacities of over 5 MTPA taking its capacity to 9 MTPA.

"The capacity ramp up will be at manufacturing units at Salboni, West Bengal where the company will add 2.4 MTPA, Jajpur, Odisha facility with an addition of 1.8 MTPA along with 1 MTPA capacity addition at Shiva Cement," it said.

According to the Cement Manufacturers Association, India's cement industry has an installed capacity of 502 MTPA comprising about 250 large cement plants.

Adity Birla group firm UltraTech is the leading producer, which has a consolidated capacity of 117.35 MTPA of grey cement.