Last week, Himadri Chemicals and Industries (HCIL) announced that it planned to sell all or part of its carbon black business based at Singur in West Bengal. The carbon black unit and its 20 MW co-generation power plant will be divested to a wholly-owned subsidiary. The restructuring is expected to achieve synergy, improve financial strength and flexibility, and streamline activities. The new company reportedly will be called Himadri e-carbon Ltd.
This week, Himadri announced plans to take the new arm global. The company is conducting a feasibility study for setting up capacities in Egypt or another strategically located country to serve the European market.
“We are now doing a study on how to take our carbon black business global. The idea is to have a manufacturing facility either in Egypt or some East European country. We are also looking at China, where we already have a coal-tar pitch facility, for carbon black,” chief executive officer Anuragh Choudhary said.
In addition to expanding geographically and domestically, Himadri also plans on expanding its presence in specialty blacks with a new grade that is used in making inks and dyes.
Himadri is also expanding domestically. The company plans to expand its coal-tar distillation capacity in India to 1 million tonnes, while its carbon black capacity in India will rise from 120,000 tonnes to 200,000 tonnes. No timeline for the project was announced.
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