New Delhi, Oct 19: Taiwan-based Continental Carbon has set up its first greenfield project in India at Gujarat’s Dahej for producing carbon black with an investment of around USD 200 million, the company’s President T M Chen said on Wednesday.
The Dahej plant, which is the company’s second unit in the country, became operational last week, he said in an interaction on the sidelines of a company event here.
“The total investments in India has crossed USD 300 million, over 75 per cent has been made in Gujarat,” he told PTI.
The first unit was set up through acquisition routes in the National Capital Region (NCR) in 2000. The capacity of the NCR unit with two production lines is 85,000 tonnes carbon black per annum. While the new unit is the company’s first greenfield set up in India having an annual capacity of 1,50,000 tonnes with four production lines, Chen said.
The company’s total installed capacity in India to manufacture carbon black stands at 2,35,000 tonnes annually with six production lines.
“The demand for carbon black is rising especially from the automobile and tyre industry. The expansion is part of our growth plans in India which is on a growth trajectory due to government policies here. Also, we have used the best of technologies at the plant to make it more sustainable,” the president said.
Tever Tu, spokesperson, Continental Carbon, said the company will be catering to the export markets as well besides meeting the domestic demand.
The plant in Dahej is strategically located and has access through ports. The countries where the exports will be made are Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey and Africa, he said.
In reply to a question with respect to the raw material for carbon black, Shiv Shanker Singh, India operation head at the company, said carbon black manufacturing helps the circular economy as it treats waste coming from oil refineries and steel sector as its raw material.
On the industries carbon black caters to, Singh said 80 per cent of the carbon black is used by the automobile industry, besides the plastics industry, ink coatings and high-end 3-D printing and electronic product applications.
The company will focus on research and development (R&D) activities in carbon black manufacturing and usage at the company’s NCR unit. The company also has plans to open up a few more R&D centres in due course of time, he said. (PTI)
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