Phillips Carbon Black (PCBL), a part of RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, will invest around Rs 1,300-1,400 crore over the next two years on capacity expansion.
The expansion lined up is Rs 800 crore for greenfield plant near Chennai in Tamil Nadu and brownfield expansion in Mundra, Gujarat, for specialty carbon that would entail an investment of Rs 300-350 crore. The carbon major will infuse Rs 100 crore in research and development facilities in Belgium and India.
The company is ramping up capacity and total investment in two years that will work out to be around Rs 1,400 crore and of which about Rs 1,200 crore will be directed at greenfield plant in Tamil Nadu and brownfield expansion in specialty carbon at Mundra.
The remaining amount will be infused for research and development (R&D) and maintenance capex of the existing plants.
PCBL now produces around 6,00,000 tonne of carbon black annually from four strategically located state-of-the-art plants at Durgapur (West Bengal), Palej (Gujarat), Mundra (Gujarat) and Kochi (Kerala), and has also set up R&D centres at Palej (Gujarat) and Ghislenghien (Belgium).
The greenfield project will be of 1,50,000 tpa for manufacturing of various grades of carbon black and green power plant, spread over 60 acre of land in Tamil Nadu. The project is in progress and likely to be commissioned by Q3/FY23.
The Mundra specialty carbon expansion will have an additional capacity of 40,000 tpa.
Despite the strong internal accruals there will be a gap of about Rs 500 crore for the capex due to 30 percent dividend policy to reward the shareholders.
The company is deliberating on the options on raising resources. It can be equity, debt or in combination. The company will seek shareholders nod to raise up to Rs 500 crore.