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Continental Carbon Company is gearing up to complete the first phase of its proposed Rs 1,500-crore carbon black manufacturing unit in Visakhapatnam within the next two years.
The first phase of the project, involving an investment of Rs 500 crore and a production capacity of 1,40,000 tonnes per annum, was flagged off at a function here on Wednesday.
The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N Kiran Kumar Reddy, laid the foundation stone for the project at the function.
The project is being implemented by Continental Carbon India Ltd (CCIL), which was formed in October 2000 after the acquisition of the carbon black assets of Oriental Carbon & Chemicals Ltd by CCC. Since then its carbon black manufacturing facility in India in Ghaziabad has been refurbished and production capacity doubled to 65 tonnes per annum.
“The Vizag unit will be much bigger than the Ghaziabad facility. It will be expanded in phases to touch a capacity of 4,20,000 per annum. Initially, we will sell 50 per cent of the production in the domestic market and the rest in overseas market,” Mr Kim K.T. Pan, President of CCC, told Business Line .
Carbon black is an engineered carbon primarily used as reinforcing filler in rubber compounding — the end products such as tyres, profiles, hoses and V-belts are mostly consumed by the automotive industry. The chief raw material for carbon black making is residual oil from refineries.
Mr Pan said the Visakhapatnam unit will imbibe cleaner technologies such as reducing the sulphur content in the feedstock.
Launching the project, Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy said the unit will have a strong domestic demand, with the automotive sector gearing up to expand production. “In Andhra Pradesh itself, we recently signed agreements for a Mahindra tractors unit and Royal Enfield motorbike unit in Medak district,” he said.
He said about 90 projects covering a wide spectrum of sectors were in the pipeline, involving an investment of Rs 3,00,000 crore and employment potential of 3.5 lakhs.
The Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Ms D. Purandeswari, and Mr Leslie Koo of Taiwan Cement Group were present on the occasion.
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