Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, May 11, 2004 |
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Corporate
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New Projects BILT plans Rs 500-cr capacity expansion Gaurav Raghuvanshi
New Delhi , May 10 BALLARPUR Industries Ltd (BILT) is planning to set up a new 200,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) paper manufacturing facility at its Bhigwan unit, near Pune, at a cost of nearly Rs 500 crore. "We are planning to increase the capacity of the Bhigwan facility by 200,000 TPA. The details of the proposed expansion are being worked out and the project is expected to be taken up in 2006," a senior BILT executive told Business Line. On the funding of the project, he said that it would cost Rs 450-500 crore and the company would decide on where to get the funds after the other details of the project had been worked out. The company has been adding capacity through modernisation at its different units. "In the last nine months alone, we have added nearly 15,000 TPA of capacity as part of our modernisation efforts." During the last couple of years, BILT has added 25,000 TPA capacity at Bhigwan after acquiring the former Sinar Mas Pulp and Paper Ltd's unit in August 2002. The unit was renamed BILT Graphic Papers Ltd and was subsequently merged with BILT in 2003. Last year, a new 40,000 TPA machine was set up at the company's Sewa facility in Orissa and an additional 10,000 TPA of pulping capacity was added at Kamalapuram, Andhra Pradesh. BILT now has an installed capacity of over four lakh TPA. The additional capacity has helped BILT increase production to 2.82 lakh million tonnes in the first three quarters of the current fiscal compared to 2.72 lakh tonnes in the same quarter last year. The company follows a July-June calendar. In the same period, the company's paper sales, including coated products, rose from 2.74 lakh to 2.86 lakh tonnes, the company executive said. BILT has also stepped up farm forestry efforts. The company spends Rs 10-15 crore each year to supply saplings and technical assistance to farmers to grow casuarina, eucalyptus and subabool trees on degraded forest land. "We have covered over 6,000 farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Karnataka and Haryana. We support the farmers with saplings and horticultural expertise to grow the trees on 10,000-20,000 hectares each year. We also give them buyback guarantee and help them arrange finance from banks," the BILT executive said. BILT imports about 60,000 tonnes of pulp each year, of which a large part is for the Bhigwan unit. International prices have gone up from $430 per tonne to $480 per tonne in the last four months, he added.
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