India's largest manganese alloy producer Maithan Alloy Ltd has announced its intention to invest Rupees 3.5 billion (approx. $78 million) to set up two greenfield manganese alloy plants in Meghalaya and in Andhra Pradesh with a combined capacity of 138,000 mt per year, in order to meet the growing demand from global steel companies.
The Andhra Pradesh plant will have an installed capacity of 120,000 mt per annum and will cost about Rupees 2.75 billion (approx $60.5 million), while the Meghalaya facility will cost Rupees 800 million (approx. $17.5 million) and is expected to be operational by the last quarter of fiscal year 2009.
"We are already the largest manganese alloy producer and will become 2.5 times bigger than the nearest competitor by 2011," Maithan Alloy's managing director Mr. Subhas Chandra Agarwalla stated.
Currently, Maithan Alloy imports almost 50 percent of its raw material. It has recently obtained a license for a manganese ore block in Orissa, which is expected to secure about 20 percent of Maithan Alloy's ore requirement for the next 20 years.
With the regard to the future, Maithan Alloy is planning to set up another mine in Madhya Pradesh.