Hindustan Zinc that completes its 50 years of existence on 10th January 2016, is India’s only the world’s leading integrated zinc-lead-silver producer
As Hindustan Zinc, a Vedanta Group company in
Zinc-Lead-Silver business celebrates its Golden Jubilee, completing 50 years of
its existence; the company is all set for its next phase of expansion of its
mining and smelting operations with an investment of Rs.8000 crore.
Hindustan Zinc is looking to expand its all operations in a
time-frame of 3-5 years, taking current ore production levels of 9.36 MTPA to
14.00 MTPA and finished metal production levels from 0.85 MTPA to 1.10 MTPA.
The Company has its mines located in Agucha, Sindesar
Khurd, Zawar, Rajpura Dariba, and Kayad, all in Rajasthan. The smelters are located in Dariba,
Chanderiya and Debari, also in Rajasthan.
Hindustan Zinc which was formed under an Act of Parliament
on 10th January 1966 is India’s only and the world’s leading
integrated zinc-lead-silver producing company.
Anil Agarwal, the
Chairman of Vedanta Group, has expressed his happiness towards providing zinc
sufficiency to India. “When we acquired Hindustan Zinc as part of Government
disinvestment program in 2002, our focus was to make India self-sufficient in
zinc. We are very proud that by adopting latest environment friendly
technology, large investment in capacity expansions and continuous exploration,
Hindustan Zinc is able to increase the production five-fold and yet have
reserves for another 30 years”, he said.
The turning point came when in the year 2002, under the
disinvestment program by the government, Hindustan Zinc was acquired by
Sterlite. Since then, the company has grown multi-fold. The metal production
capacity is 1 million tonne in the year today from about 200,000 tonne in 2002.
The mine production capacity has also increased to 10.25 million tonne today from
3.45 million tonne in 2002.
The reserves and resources, which were 143.7 million tonnes
in the year 2002 today stand at 375.1 million tonne after consuming reserves
for about 14 years. The philosophy of the company on exploration has been to
add equal reserve for every tonne of ore mined.
The investment of Rs. 12,000 crore in the past years have
brought many changes in not just asset optimization but also building new
facilities into the business to give value to the shareholders. At the time of disinvestment, Hindustan Zinc
did not have captive power generation or wind energy farms. Today the company
produces 474 MW of captive thermal power and 274 MW of wind energy.
The turnover of the company has also seen a turn-around,
from mere Rs. 1,200 crore in the year 2002 to more than Rs. 14,500 crore in the
year 2014-15. The profit too has jumped from just Rs. 68 crore in the year 2002
to Rs. 8,178 crore in the year 2014-15.
The contribution to the exchequer has also seen significant
change, which increased from Rs. 364 crore in the year 2002 to more than Rs. 5,000
crore in 2014-15.
“Though the zinc mining in India dates back to over 2500
years old, and the retorts of ancient mining can still be seen at Zawar, about
45 km from Udaipur; the zinc as a metal has been not much known or utilized in
India. We are still exploring the new areas where zinc could add value to
consumers and also add in the GDP of the country. We are exploring the
possibilities of galvanizing of car bodies and structures to increase their
life-span accordingly”, said Sunil
Duggal, the Chief Executive Officer of Hindustan Zinc.
Hindustan Zinc is also looking to set-up a new Fertilizer
Plant with a capacity to manufacture 0.5 MTPA of Di-Ammonium Phosphate in
Debari in district Udaipur with an estimated investment of Rs. 1350 crores.
As the company celebrates its Golden Jubilee year, it is
all set to invest another Rs. 8000 crore in the coming 3-5 years on expansions
of its mines and smelting operations.
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