Source - CNBC-TV18

Cement player, JK Lakshmi Cement is looking to raise capacity to 10 million tonne by end of next year.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Mr Shailendra Chouksey whole time director of JK Lakshmi said that their current capacity is 4.8 million tonne. The company is working on several projects to boost capacity.

He said that "We are on the verge of completing our new grinding unit in Haryana which is about half a million tonne. We are also working on Greenfield project in Durg. By October or December 13 we should be doubling our capacity to nearly 10 million tonne."

There have been reports about cut in cement prices in Himachal Pradesh. However, Mr Chouksey said that they have not seen any price cut at the moment in that region.

Below is the edited transcript of Chouksey’s interview with CNBC-TV18.

Q - Coal India has introduced a new pricing mechanism. What sort of price hike could we expect in terms of input costs for JK Lakshmi? How will you be passing it on?

A - Coal India would be pegging price through gross calorific value rather than useful hit value, companies which are using coal alone, for them it would tent amount to nearly INR 10 to INR 12 a bag, that is our calculation. However, we at JK Lakshmi Cement are using petcoke as our main fuel. We don’t see a much of an impact expect for about say INR 2 to INR 3 a bag, but larger on the industry the rise is much higher.

To read full transcript, please visit www.steelguru.com