PCBL Ltd has drawn up an ambitious plan to invest ₹3,500 crore over the next five years for three initiatives — take its carbon black capacity to over a million tonnes, double the capacity of the newly acquired chemical business and foray into manufacturing of EV battery components with an Australian partner.
The roadmap supplements the company’s big-ticket purchase of Aquapharm for about ₹3,800 crore, widening PCBL’s portfolio to chemical applications for water treatments, detergents and the oil and gas sector.
Growing the traditional business of carbon black by about 50 per cent to a nameplate capacity of 1.17 million tonnes per annum will require ₹2,400 crore of investment through 2029. Of this, PCBL, formerly known as Phillips Carbon Black Ltd, is already in the process of adding 110,000 tonnes in its existing Tamil Nadu and Mundra, Gujarat, plants.
“Demand supply dynamics in our industry (carbon black) is very favourable and we, therefore, believe we can maintain a 12 per cent volume growth CAGR for the next five years,” Raj Kumar Gupta, CFO of PCBL, told The Telegraph.
The company, which is the seventh in the global pecking order in carbon black, is now looking for a new site, preferably on a coastal location, for a greenfield plant capable of producing 150,000 tonnes of carbon black. There are 3-4 sites under review, the company management said.
The mid-term signposts for expansion of carbon black, which finds use in the tyre industry among others, involves going up to 880,000 tonnes in 4-5 quarters and 1.03 MT in 8-9 quarters. “We are adding 400,000 tonnes of capacity from now to FY29,” the CFO explained.
Aquapharm
PCBL, which is part of Calcutta’s RPSG Group, plans to double the capacity of Aquapharm in the next 5-year period, pencilling a CAGR of 15 per cent over the duration, at an estimated investment of ₹600 crore. It is already in the process of augmenting capacity by 38,000 tonnes at Mahad, Maharashtra, by the end of FY25. The nameplate capacity now stands at 130,000 tonnes, which is going up by another 150,000 tonnes by FY29.
The manufacturing plant for components for EV batteries is going to come up in Gujarat and would cost around ₹500 crore. It has formed a strategic joint venture with Australia’s Kinaltek Pty, which has the technology for a process which converts silica to nano silicon.
Nano silicon is a superconducting particle used in the anode part of the battery. The initial capacity will be 2,000 tonnes and going forward more capacity will be added, Gupta added.
The CFO explained the entire capex would be spent uniformly over the five-year period. As of now, the capital works in progress stands at about ₹350 crore.