The ailing Haldia Petrochemicals has become a hot bed for poaching by recruiters from the downstream oil and gas sector.
According to Managing Director Sumantra Choudhury, between January and July this year 60 officers, mostly in the Manager to Chief Manager level, have joined competing organisations in the petrochem sector.
Major recruiter
Indian Oil, which has set up a petrochemicals facility at Panipat, is reportedly one of the major recruiters.
“The rate of attrition has come down in the last one month, but it’s a concern,” Choudhury said at a news conference.
According to him, with improvement in margins in the petrochem sector and availability of Rs 200 crore non-fund based working capital support (for opening letters of credit to buy feedstock) from banks, HPL’s fortunes have improved in July.
“We made a cash profit in July,” Choudhury said.
He added that capacity utilisation is expected to improve from 72 per cent in July to 90 per cent in August. To ensure capacity utilisation without stretching working capital requirement, the company recently invited tenders for tolling (that is, naphtha suppliers take the processed product in exchange of a processing charge).
Only one company has shown interest in such an arrangement.
Forex fluctuations
To reduce the risk of foreign exchange fluctuations, HPL has increased intake of domestic naphtha from 20 per cent to 36 per cent.
Though sold in dollar terms, the lower transit time for such domestic cargoes help reduce the risk of currency fluctuations.