Hoganas is the leading manufacturer of iron powders in the country with a 90 per cent share of the market. These products have application in the powder metallurgy, automotive, welding and chemical industry. A new mixing plant which makes `ready to use mixes' was formally inaugurated by Hoganas AB's (Sweden) senior vice president Sten Ake Kwist. The mixing plant, first of its kind in the country, will be adding value and upgrading the existing range of iron powder products.

Till now customers used to buy the iron powder and mix it with other metals to suit their requirement. With the 5,000 tpa mixing plant in place Hoganas would be able to sell `press ready pre-mixes'. This would result in improving consistency and reduce batch to batch variation for the buyers' products.

Sten Kwist said that the expansion would ensure that Hoganas would have a world-size plant and it will be manufacturing iron powder of international quality at competitive costs. Kvist said that world over the trend is to move to pre-mixes and in US and Europe nearly 50 per cent of the market comprises of this ready to use product. Kwist said that the domestic market too would be moving in this direction and the share of pre-mixed powder would increase.

The automotive sector is among the biggest customer of this product but the recession in the industry has not affected Hoganas. According to Sud, "The year 1997-98 was the best year for the company and the current year's performance indicates good results this year also." This year's turnover is likely to be Rs 28 crore compared to last year's Rs 23 crore. Increase in exports and good orders from the welding, chemical metallurgical segment has boosted performance. The company has invested Rs 2.5 crore in the mixing plant and will be investing an additional Rs 7 crore will be put in for doubling capacity.

When the expansion plans are completed Hoganas will have in place a 15,000 tpa capacity for raw atomised powder, 18,000 tpa plant for sponge iron powder and the 5,000 tpa premix plant.