SEForge, an associate company of the wind power major Suzlon Energy, has set up a ductile iron casting foundry at Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. Considered to be the world?s largest in the ductile iron castings, the foundry will have an annual capacity of 120,000 tonne of specialised ductile iron castings. The company has also set up a 70,000-tonne forging plant at Vadodara in Gujarat, considered to be most modern in this category, said SEForge Ltd executive director Hugo L Schippmann.
In an exclusive interview with FE in Chennai on Saturday, Schippmann said: ?Both the plants are coming up in SEZs and will cater to the global markets, particularly to the European market. We have made an initial investment of over Rs 1,000 crore into these plants and will be doubling the investment in next two years to double the capacity of these plants.?
?We expect to commence the trial production in May this year and the commercial production will go on stream by June/July. We are looking at a turnover of Rs 2,500 crore in the next two years,? he said.
According to Schippmann, the semi-automated ductile iron casting plant at Coimbatore will specialise in providing end-to-end solutions. ?The 120,000-tonne-per-annum capacity foundry puts SEForge in the league of the biggest in the world,? Schippmann said.
The global market for ductile iron castings alone estimated at $55 billion and expected to touch $75 billion in the next 5-7 years. ?Nearly 40% of the projected market size will be driven by the Asian countries,? Schippmann said.
SEForge is poised to emerge as a single source of R&D solutions, castings design assistance, patterning and finish machining.
