Cement-makers post higher production, despatch in Sept

Our Corporate Bureau

Mumbai, Oct 3: Major cement companies have registered significant increases in production and despatch figures for September this year. Associated Cement Companies (ACC) has seen a 35-per cent increase in production at 9.83 lakh tonne (lt), as against 7.26 lt in the same month last year. Despatches also saw a 27 per cent rise at 9.87 lt as opposed to 7.75 lt in the same period last year.

A senior ACC official said that the substantial increase in production was primarily on account of commencement of production at the newly commissioned 2.6 million tonne Wadi plant at Karnataka.
Gujarat Ambuja also saw a rise in production and despatch figures. While production for September stood at 5.79 lt, despatches stood at 5.48 lt.

These figures are an improvement over the comparable figures of 4.62 lt and 4.60 lt respectively.

ACC’s cumulative production figures for April-September this fiscal stood at 58.34 lt, as against 52.76 lt in the corresponding period last year. Despatches also saw a 10.31-per cent rise at 58.29 lt, as against 52.84 lt last fiscal.

Gujarat Ambuja’s production figures for the period stood at 14.74 lt, as against 12.73 lt in the same period last year. Despatches also saw an increase at 14.52 lt, as against 12.7 lt in the corresponding period last year.

Analysts point out that cement consumption was higher by 2.5 per cent in the first five months of the current fiscal.

Most of this growth has been visible in the northern and eastern markets, which are ACC’s key markets.

Higher agricultural output on the back of a good monsoon is expected to drive growth in these markets in the second half of the current fiscal, analysts point out.

The industry is also banking on the golden quadrilateral project to generate another four-five mt in incremental demand and the north-south and east-west corridors to boost incremental demand by another five-six mt.