Himadri Chemicals eyes Rs. 400 crore revenue from its China unit

Himadri Chemicals and Industries, which set up its liquid pitch terminal in China last year, is eyeing a turnover of Rs. 400 crore from this unit by 2014-15, and planning an additional capacity of 5,00,000 TPA in five years.

"Our China facility is one of the largest liquid pitch terminal globally. We are targeting a topline of Rs. 400 crore from this operation by FY15. We are also planning to increase the capacity and take the total to 1 lakh tonne per annum\ (TPA) by next five years," CEO Anurag Choudhary told PTI.

The current capacity of the China liquid pitch is 50,000 TPA.

"We invested Rs. 200 crore to set up liquid pitch terminal at Shangdon Dawn in China. We are expecting to break even from this plant by 2014-15," he said.

Himadri Chemicals is currently supplying liquid pitch to Middle East region from this terminal.

"We are planning to strengthen our position in the Middle East region and are targeting a 15-20 per cent market share by 2014-15," Mr. Choudhary added.

The total market size of liquid pitch in the Middle East region is about half a million tonne.

The company also supplies liquid pitch to China, New Zealand and South East Asia from this terminal. Liquid coal tar pitch constitutes the anodes (positive electrodes) used to produce aluminium.

Globally, aluminium manufacturing units are increasingly inclining towards liquid coal tar pitch usage over solid flakes for their smelter units due to environmental call to minimise carbon footprints by reducing energy consumption.

Traditionally, an aluminium smelter converts solid pitch flakes to usable liquid pitch and in process leads to carbon emission.