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.
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.
