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Kerala Minerals posts Rs 74.66-cr Q1 turnover

G.K. Nair

KOCHI, July 12

THE State-owned Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd (KMML) at Chavara in Kerala's Kollam district has achieved a sales turnover of Rs 74.66 crore during the first quarter of the current fiscal as against Rs 68.25 crore in the same period last year.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr P.S. Nair, Managing Director, said sales had also increased from 5,944 tonnes to 6,766 tonnes during the first quarter. He said the price of KMML product was on par with that of imported titanium dioxide.

Therefore, the removal of QR had not so far made any impact on KMML. The landed price of imported titanium dioxide was around Rs 1.4 lakh per tonne.``Our price is lower than this'', he said adding that chances of dumping titanium dioxide of the grade KMM L produced was remote in the near future.

He said the unit had an installed capacity of 21,000 tonnes of titanium dioxide pigment rutile grade. The proposed internal expansion programme to raise the capacity to 60,000 tonnes per annum and technology modification indigenously was in different sta ges of implementation and the expansion would be completed in three years time, he said.

Besides, the overall expansion programme including setting up of a synthetic rutile plant and new mineral separation plant, involving an aggregate investment of around Rs 800 crore was still in the primary stages. Attributing the delay to `procedural pro blems', Mr Nair said that now pre-qualification tenders had been called.

It would take at least another year to commence work on the expansion projects. The company had been making profits for the past few years and projects were financed through internal resources.