• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Mohan Padmanabhan

To finalise plant & machinery suppliers by July-end

Kolkata , June 23

The Rs 700-crore Emami Group, with major interests in personal and healthcare products, paper and retailing, has zeroed in on the port town of Haldia in West Bengal as the first site for its proposed bio-diesel plant.

Talking to Business Line here on Thursday on the progress on the project, Mr Aditya Agarwal, Director, Emami Ltd, said the suppliers of plant and machinery for the multi-feed bio-diesel plant at Haldia would be finalised by July-end, and project would begin by mid-August. Work on the cultivation front has already started in West Bengal and Orissa in a big way, he pointed out.

The capacity of the Haldia unit would initially be of 50,000 tonnes per annum, with provision built-in to scale up production to 1 lakh tonnes. Mr Agarwal said the plant was to set up at least three such plants at various locations.

He put the plant cost at around Rs 100 crore.

The entire bio-diesel project would entail a total investment ranging between Rs 300 crore and Rs 500 crore.

In the list of suppliers short-listed, all from Europe, are names such as Lurgi (Germany), Energia-Artica (Austria), BDI Technologies (Austria) and Desmat Ballestra (Italy).

The company had also held discussions with some US technology suppliers.

Jatropha cultivation

On Jatropha cultivation, Mr Agarwal said the company has tied up with IIT, Kharagpur for the scientific inputs. It already has an arrangement with the IIT for its amla products in the Ayurvedic range. In Bengal, the Group has launched its own Jatropha project at a 150-acre site near Bolpur. In other States, a contract farming approach is being adopted, with land area of nearly 5,000 acres.

Mott Macdonald of UK had done the initial feasibility study for the bio-diesel project of Emami.

Mr Agarwal said such bio-diesel projects, besides being environment-friendly, would also give a big boost to agriculture, and make us self-sufficient in energy resources.

More Stories on : Diversification | Non-conventional Energy | Personal Products

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Disclosure norms for excise duty revised

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line