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Essar Group
Essar Group firm Black Box, a global digital infrastructure integrator, has earmarked about Rs 100 crore to fuel its India expansion, as it looks to more than double its India business in the next few years. A huge chunk of this investment -- which represents about a quarter of Black Box's recent Rs 410 crore fundraise -- will be used to strengthen the firm's Center of Excellence in Bengaluru, where the company plans to double its workforce to about 1,000 employees over the next year. The company currently employs around 3,000 people worldwide. "India's digital infrastructure is undergoing a fundamental rebuild. The next four to five years are hyper-active for us because we want to ensure we're deeply embedded in this transformation, said Sanjeev Verma, Whole-Time Director at Black Box. With India's data center capacity currently at just 800900 megawatts -- roughly equivalent to a single hyperscaler in the US -- Black Box sees a compelling long-term opportunity, the company said in
Essar venture GreenLine Mobility Solutions on Thursday said it has joined hands with tire reinforcement technology company Bekaert to decarbonise road logistics. The partnership was flagged off with the deployment of GreenLine's LNG-powered trucks at Bekaert's Ranjangaon plant in Maharashtra, marking the beginning of a pilot phase, the company said in a statement. The pilot phase aims to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of Bekaert's logistics operations. The partnership will support India's vision of a gas-based economy, the statement said. Each GreenLine LNG truck is expected to reduce up to 24 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, contributing to Bekaert's ambition of becoming carbon net-zero by 2050 and achieving 65 per cent of sales from sustainable solutions. "At GreenLine, we are proud to offeran integrated ecosystem - from LNG refuelling to real-time telematics - that empowers our partners to make meaningful progress on their net-zero goals," Anand Mimani, CEO of Green
Nayara Energy, India's largest private fuel retailer, plans to add 400 petrol pumps this year to expand its retail network across various states, the firm said on Sunday. With 6,500+ retail outlets across India, Nayara Energy has been adding new retail outlets to its network and has been growing steadily across various states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. In a statement, Nayara said it "is well on track to add 400 retail outlets this year". In line with its plans to aggressively grow in India, Nayara Energy has also revamped its dealer programme to onboard new dealers and give a boost to local entrepreneurship. It is now inviting applications for new dealerships across the country to open petrol pumps. Nayara operates a 20-million tonnes a year refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat. With over 6,500 petrol pumps, it caters to the need for reliable and safe mobility across the length and breadth of the country. It recently forayed into petrochemicals sector with a
Muted sales growth in FY24 notwithstanding, Black Box is poised for its next growth phase aided by a growing deal pipeline, revamped go-to-market strategy, and focus on data centres, according to a report by brokerage firm Ventura Securities. Black Box, an Essar Group company, is a digital infrastructure integrator. Its portfolio includes data centre solutions, advanced networking solutions, AI-powered analytics and IoT-enabled devices. "Despite muted sales growth in FY24, primarily due to delays in project execution and decision-making, Black Box is poised for next growth phase," it said, adding that the firm has revamped its strategy by focusing on the top 300 customers and exiting less profitable long-tail customers, as they do not contribute to margin growth. Black Box plans to concentrate on data centres, primarily in North America and India, Ventura said. Data centres constitute about 20 per cent of the company's revenues. With a customer base that includes major hyperscaler
Essar Group on Friday announced the appointment of Manu Kapoor as its Group Chief for public policy and corporate affairs. Kapoor joins the company with over three decades of specialised experience with corporations, governments, public sector agencies, and industry groups. He is an established leader with a successful career in managing corporation's reputation and brands across the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Russia, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), eastern Europe, Baltics and Asia. He carries an in-depth knowledge of the geo-political landscape across the globe. Prashant Ruia, Director, Essar Capital, said, "Manu will be responsible for building and maintaining strategic relationships with key stakeholders, including businesses, government bodies, regulators, media, and policymakers". "Essar is strengthening its global presence in energy transition, green steel, digitisation, technology, and innovation. It's an incredible opportunity to collaborate with industry
Essar group will turn the UK's Stanlow refinery into the world's first decarbonised green refinery as it plans to use blue hydrogen for meeting heating and power needs of the unit, cutting carbon emissions by as much as 95 per cent, a top official said Tuesday. Speaking at FT's Energy Transition Summit India, Prashant Ruia, director of Essar Capital, which manages the group's portfolio of investments, said Essar Energy Transition's (EET) HyNet project will produce 350-megawatt of blue hydrogen in phase-1 and another 1 gigawatt in phase-II. Since the UK does not have solar and wind potential to produce renewable electricity which could be used to split water in an electrolyser to produce green hydrogen and oxygen, EET will use natural gas to produce blue hydrogen and also capture and permanently store carbon produced during the process. "We are going to make this (Stanlow) the world's first decarbonised green refinery. We are decarbonising 95 per cent of our carbon dioxide (CO2)" ...
Essar Group's IT arm Black Box expects the share of India business to grow by 1-2 percentage points in its course to become a USD 2 billion revenue company by 2027-28, a top official of the company said. The company specialises in building IT infrastructure for critical technology applications including hyperscaler data centres and planning to bring its learning to the Indian market as many of the company's global customers are looking to invest in the country, Black Box CEO Sanjeev Verma told PTI. He said that the company plans to increase employee headcount across all levels in India to around 1,000 people from about 600 people at present. "Currently, India is 6 per cent of our business. We do not expect it to become much larger, but if we have to go to USD 2 billion then it will be significantly important for us to move it to 7- 8 per cent," Verma said. The company has reported revenue of around USD 750 in FY2024. Verma said that Black Box want to bring some value to India base
Essar Group is awaiting final approvals to start investing about USD 4.5 billion in building a low-carbon steel plant in Saudi Arabia, its top official Prashant Ruia said. The approvals are expected anytime now, after which the conglomerate will start working on the 4 million tonne per year steel plant along with port facilities at Ras Al-Khair in Saudi Arabia. "We still haven't got all the final approvals," Ruia, director of Essar Capital, which manages the group's portfolio of investments, said in an interview with PTI. The plant will meet domestic steel demand in Saudi Arabia. "Saudi Arabia is going through a large growth phase, a large part of steel today is getting imported into Saudi Arabia. So this is basically a domestic plant," he said. The oil-rich kingdom is eyeing becoming an electric vehicle manufacturing hub, manufacturing more than 3 lakh cars annually by 2030. Essar is looking to tap into the demand for steel for such cars as well as for other consumer goods ...
Essar Group plans to invest Rs 30,000 crore over the next four years in setting up a green hydrogen plant at Jamnagar in Gujarat as the metals-to-infrastructure conglomerate eyes clean energy as a key pillar for its new phase of growth. The conglomerate is looking to decarbonise its oil refinery in the UK, construct a green steel plant in Saudi Arabia, and build an LNG and electric ecosystem to decarbonise long-haul heavy trucks, Prashant Ruia, director of Essar Capital, which manages the group's portfolio of investments, said. It is also considering an entry into mining of critical minerals, mainly used in electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and wind-turbine magnets. Essar Future Energy plans to develop 1 gigawatt of hydrogen capacity along with associated green molecules capacity of 1 million tonne per annum in Jamnagar over the next four years, he said in an interview with PTI. "We are going to invest around Rs 30,000 crore (in the green hydrogen project in Jamnagar)," he .
Essar Group sees huge growth potential in its IT firm Black Box with boom in artificial intelligence (AI) technology driving demand for new data centres and managed services across the globe, a top official of the multinational conglomerate said. In an exclusive interview with PTI, Prashant Ruia, director of Essar Capital, which manages the group's portfolio of investment, expressed confidence in the sector. "This is a company which can see tremendous growth, because the kind of growth taking place in data centres and managed services globally is exponential," he said. Black Box, listed on the Indian stock exchanges, has operations spread across 35 countries, but its major business comes from the US. "It's obviously listed in India, but it's primarily headquartered, main operations are in the US. We currently do about USD 800 million of revenue in Black Box... about 75 per cent of the market for us is the US. We have a very large operation headquartered in Dallas, we have close to