Jindal Polyester pens Rs 570 crore spread plan

Jindal Polyester Limited (JPL), a B C Jindal group company, has firmed up a Rs 570 crore investment plan for its flexible packaging film plant in Nashik. This comes close on the heels of the acquisition of French company Rexor, on November 26.

With its planned investment, slated to fall in place by mid-2005, Jindal's capacity for bi-axially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) and polyester film and will go up to 1,70,000 tonne per annum (tpa) from 49,000 tpa at present.

Rexor, the company says, is the largest metalliser and coater of plastic films in France. It has acquired the company for Euro 8.5 million, by a direct investment of Euro 3.6 million and by raising the balance as debt in Jindal France, its subsidiary.

"With these expansions our Nashik plant is poised to become the single largest location for BOPP films in the world. The domestic market for polyester film has been growing steadily for some time now. In four years, demand will grow at a rate of 10 per cent for polyester films and 15 per cent for B0PP," Samir Banerjee, director (marketing) of JPL, said.

The company's two polyester film manufacturing lines of 25,000 tpa each will commence production at Nasik next year.

The first of these lines is under installation and is likely to be operational in February 2004. With this, it claims that its will become the largest producer of PET films in the country and the fifth largest in the world. It would have a capacity of 85,000 tpa, up from 35,000 at present.

JDL diversified into BOPP films in March this year. Two film manufacturing lines in the next eighteen months for this segment will become operational in October 2004 and June 2005.

All these projects would be funded through a mix of debt and internal resources.

The company has another manufacturing facility at Bulandshahr in UP for polyester yarn.

After these expansions, 80 per cent of its production will be in favour of flexible packaging films vis-a-vis yarn, up from 55 per cent.