Maithan Alloys to set up greenfield plant at Vizag

Kolkata, Sep 10 (UNI) Maithan Alloys Ltd, the country's largest manufacturer and exporter of manganese alloys, plans to set up a 72 megavolt ampere (MVA) ferro alloys unit at Vishakhapatnam(Vizag)in Andhra Pradesh by 2011, with an installed capacity of 120,000 tonnes per annum (tpa).

Informing this to newspersons here today, Maithan Alloys Managing Director(MD) Subhas Chandra Agarwalla said the total investment for the greenfield project, sprawling over 60 acre, was pegged at Rs 275 crore, which would be funded through a mix of debt and internal accrual.

He informed that the plant's vicinity to the Vishakhapatnam port would result in easy access to the manganese ore which the company currently imported from Australia and South Africa.

Maithan Alloys imported around 1,25,000 tonnes of manganese ore, which was the half of its annual requirement, according to him.

The firm was also looking for setting up a manufacturing unit at Haldia for which it was looking for land. '' We will approach the state government after carrying out the feasibility studies, in this regard,'' he said.

Moreover, the company was setting up another ferro-alloys manufacturing unit in Meghalaya on around 10 acre of land, with an installed capacity of 28,000 tpa, for which the construction had already begun, Maithan Alloys president Sudhanshu Agarwalla told newspersons.

The plant, entailing an investment of Rs 80 crore, was expected to be operational by the last quarter of the current fiscal, Mr Agarwalla said adding it comprised setting up a captive power plant based on thermal power with an installed capacity of 15 MW.

Maithan Alloys, a joint venture between Maithan Group and BMA Group, is currently having a ferro alloy plant at Kalyaneshwari in Burdwan in West Bengal, with an installed capacity of 94,600 tpa.

Furthermore, the firm had notched up a net profit of Rs 31.44 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal registering a sales of Rs 206 crore, against a sales figure of Rs 378 crore and a profit after tax of Rs 39.18 crore in the previous financial year.

'' The expected turnover of the company in the present fiscal is Rs 940 crore. The firm's current market share stands around ten per cent, which is expected to touch 18 per cent by 2011 ,'' the MD informed.

The firm's shares are traded on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

UNI SB KK KLC1733