cement | Business Upturn

DCBL launches Dalmia Supreme, a new brand cement for eastern states

United News of India (UNI) — Thu, 04 May 2023 13:01:54 +0000

Bhubaneswar, May 4: Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Limited (DCBL), has announced the launch of its new brand, Dalmia Supreme Cement for the eastern states.

The new brand will be available for retail consumers in the markets of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, and Jharkhand from May 1.

The premium brand is a high-quality Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC) product type offering triple benefits of superior strength, faster setting and better workability, making it the perfect choice for constructing strong and durable houses.

The brand will be sold through all existing retail channels in the eastern region.

Commenting on the launch of the brand DCBL Senior Executive Director and Head Sales, Logistics, Technical Services & Marketing Rajiv Prasad said “We are excited to introduce Dalmia Supreme Cement in the eastern market.”

He said in line with the company’s customer centric approach, this new offering is to cater to the growing needs of a specialized product for Stronger, Faster andBetter construction.

The new brand is an addition to our existing portfolio of established brands like Dalmia Cement, Dalmia DSP Cement, Konark Cement and Dalmia Infra Pro.

Dalmia Supreme Cement is a specialized, best-in-class product that is formulated for all kinds of construction applications along with improved workability, higher density and offers better resistance against chemical attacks.

It is made with fine pozzolanic material for superior strength and enables faster setting, directly and positively impacting construction cost.

As part of Dalmia Cement portfolio, this product too has been designed through intensive research and development and combined with over eight decades of expertise in providing quality that lasts a lifetime.

Stocks to watch: Infosys, HCL Tech, Wipro, M&M and more

Aryan Jakhar — Fri, 13 Jan 2023 03:20:03 +0000

Aside from the quarterly results, the markets have a significant amount of news flow to process this morning. The retail inflation rate in India reached its lowest level in 12 months in December, while the IIP rose to its highest level in 5 months in November.

In spite of this, inflation in the United States has decreased to 6.5%, which has raised the possibility that the Federal Reserve would reduce interest rates. After then, the markets in the United States closed with gains of up to 0.6 percentage points.

In comparison to the spot Nifty 50’s closing price of 17,858 yesterday, the SGX Nifty January futures were quoted at 17,948 this morning at 7:20 AM.

In the meanwhile, the following stocks are anticipated to garner significant attention during trading on Friday.

Infosys: Infosys, a significant player in the information technology industry, has announced good financial results for the third quarter, exceeding Wall Street projections for both net profit and revenue. The net profit of the company for the third fiscal quarter of fiscal year 23 was 6,586 crore rupees, representing an increase of 13.4 percent year over year and 9.4 percent quarter over quarter. To reach Rs. 38,318 crore, revenue increased by 20.2% year over year.

In addition, the company has increased its revenue projection for the fiscal year 2023 as a result of a robust acquisition pipeline. In contrast to the former prediction of 15–16 percentage points of revenue increase, it is now anticipating revenue growth in the range of 16–16.5 percent.

HCL Technologies: HCL Technologies, which is the third-largest IT services provider in India, recorded a gain of 18.8 percent year over year in their net revenue for the third quarter, which came in at 4,096 crore. Due to the fact that the firm anticipates Q4FY23 to experience seasonal slowdown, it revised its higher-end revenue projection for FY23 from 13.5 percent to 14.5 percent to 13.5 percent to 14 percent. Previously, it had projected revenue growth of 13.5 percent to 14.5 percent.

Wipro: The information technology company Wipro is forecasting revenue growth of up to 3 percent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) to Rs 23,497 crore in the third quarter of fiscal year 23 (Q3FY23), which is in line with the management’s estimate of between 0.5 and 2 percent.

Earnings today: Results for the third quarter will be released on Friday by Wipro, Just Dial, L&T Finance Holdings, Aditya Birla Money, Choice International, Ganesh Housing Corporation, International Travel House, and Rajnish Wellness.

Shriram Finance: On Friday, the private equity firm Apax Partner intends to sell off all of its holdings in the financial services company Shriram Finance through the use of block deals.

Paytm: It has been claimed that the Chinese firm Alibaba has sold half of its stake in One97 Communications for a total of 3.1 percent of the company’s value, which is an indicator that Alibaba is abandoning the Indian market. However, Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group that formerly had a share in Paytm and which still does so today, has not reduced its ownership of that investment.

Lotus Chocolate: Reliance Retail Ventures has issued an open offer to acquire up to 33.39 lakh shares, which represents 26% of the share capital of Lotus Chocolate, for a consideration of Rs 115.50 per share. This offer is being made in light of the fact that Lotus Chocolate is being acquired by Reliance Retail Ventures. The overall cost is estimated to be 38.56 billion rupees. The date range for the open offer begins on February 21 and ends on March 06, 2023.

Rail Vikas Nigam: Rail Vikas Nigam, which is managed by the state, was given a letter of award from Southern Railway for the amount of Rs 38.97 crore.

Cement: The acceleration in demand for cement, along with marginal price hikes of approximately 2-3 percent by cement companies in the October-December quarter (third quarter, or Q3) of 2022-23 may not be enough to cushion the impact of high input costs on the bottom line, according to the estimates that have been revealed by the Bloomberg consensus for the quarter.

Mahindra and Mahindra: As a result of various records that were achieved by the company’s South African subsidiary, the Indian car manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra was recognised as the most rapidly expanding brand in South Africa for the year 2022. According to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA), Mahindra South Africa increased its sales volume by a staggering 78% in comparison to 2021. This figure is the highest of all the vehicle brands that report their sales to NAAMSA and is the highest of all the vehicle brands in South Africa.

Anand Rathi Wealth: The brokerage company recorded a year-over-year gain of 35% in Q3FY23 consolidated net revenue, which came in at Rs 43.22 crore. At Rs. 138 crore, consolidated revenue saw a year-over-year increase of 30.6%.

Jewellery maker: The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) will add 43 more districts to the list of those required to comply with the hallmark standards for jewellery. At this time, hallmarking of jewellery goods is required to be done in around 288 districts across the country of India.

Stocks in F&O Ban: GNFC and Indiabulls Housing Finance continue to be the only two stocks that are restricted from trading during the F&O ban period on Friday.

IIT Madras develops Math model to manufacture Bio-cement

United News of India (UNI) — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 09:31:23 +0000

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) have developed a structured model to help in the production of bio-cement, which is an alternative sustainable process for cementation. It has the potential to reduce the production of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the future. Called ‘Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation’ (MICP), this process is used to make bio-cement using bacteria (Ex: S. pasteurii), a release from IIT-M said today. The research was focused to gain better understanding of the MICP process with a long term aim to scale up manufacturing of Bio-Cement. It said during the UN Climate Change Conference held at Glasgow last year, around 140 countries pledged to reduce carbon-di-oxide emission and achieve net-zero emissions. Cement manufacturing is among the largest CO2-producing industries.

It is vital to develop alternative sustainable processes for manufacturing cement to reduce CO2 emissions and Bio-Cement can be a major step in this direction. The IIT Madras Research team was led by Prof. G. K. Suraishkumar, Department of Biotechnology; Dr. Nirav Bhatt, Assistant Professor, Department of Biotechnology, and Ms. Subasree Sridhar, Research Scholar, IIT Madras. The findings of their research were published in the reputed peer-reviewed Biochemical Engineering Journal. The researchers studied the MICP process using the bacteria, S. pasteurii, proposed. And developed a structured model for the overall ureolysis processes (uptake and breaking of urea using bacteria). To scale up the MICP process, which can be an alternative to manufacture cement. Explaining the practical applications of this research, Suraishkumar said.

The current applications are self-healing cement for sealing cracks in difficult-to-reach locations, consolidation of soil structures, removal of heavy metals and ‘radionuclides’ from drinking water, among others. A better understanding of the fundamental microbial processes such as overall ureolysis in the bio-cement formation could help us design and operate bioreactors for bio-cement production in the future to replace conventional cement for some applications, he said. “In the short term, the better understanding would help us provide optimal conditions for effective self-healing cement applications, and soil consolidation, among other applications.

In the long term, the better understanding would help produce conventional cement equivalent through a bio-route”, he added. MICP is the process by which calcium carbonate precipitates are formed by micro organisms, which are used to produce bio-cement. The developed structured model is useful for developing a unified model of ureolysis processes with calcite precipitation and MICP scale-up studies in the future. Nirav Bhatt said, “MICP processes are currently modelled using unstructured models. Structured models of MICP provide better mechanistic insights into the bio-cementation process. Further, these models will be used in improving the process, rational process scale-up. And optimization in the future”.

The key advantages of Bio-Cement over conventionally-manufactured cement included Bio-cement synthesis is more energy efficient. As it requires temperatures in the range of 30 to 40 °C whereas conventional cement production requires above 900⁰C. Bio-cement is eco-friendly. Because it has negligible carbon dioxide emission. Whereas conventional cement production is a significant contributor of global carbon dioxide emissions. Its production can potentially be more economical since industrial wastes. Such as Lactose Mother Liquor (LML) and Corn Steep Liquor (CSL) can also be used. As raw materials for the bacteria. More over, the Bio-cement production is faster. And further, research has shown that it has comparable shear strength, durability. And reduced water absorption capacity and permeability to the conventional cement.

Infra stocks gain 8% on BSE after the Union Budget 2021

Ushma Ghosh — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 05:59:53 +0000

As the Union Budget gave new vigour to the market, there are certain stocks that have come into focus with analysts rooting for them, especially from banking, infra and commercial vehicle makers. The shares of infrastructure and construction-related companies are trading on their peaks after the government gave a boost to infrastructure projects in the Union Budget 2021.

The FM announced the FY22 CAPEX target at Rs 5.54 lakh crore against FY21’s Rs 4.39 lakh crore.

Shares of KNR Constructions, Ultra Tech Cement, Ramky Infra, SPML Infra, Kakatya Cement and HG Infra Engg are trading with a gain of 5-8% on the BSE.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a National Bank for Financing Development (NaBFID) to help in the process of infrastructure financing in the country. As much as Rs 5 lakh crore will be lent by DFI in 3 years’ time, the FM said.

The National Infrastructure Pipeline has been expanded to 7,400 projects and projects worth Rs 1.1 lakh crore have been completed under the National Infra Pipeline, she added.

“We will also introduce a bill to set up DFI providing Rs 20,000 crore to launch the National Asset Monetisation Pipeline to fund new infra projects. This developmental financial institution will play a key role as an enabler for infrastructure financing in the country,” Sitharaman said.

India Cements Reports Q3 profit of ₹ 62 crore, revenue stood at ₹ 1,160 crore

Devanshu Singla — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 10:54:13 +0000

India Cements reported standalone net profit at ₹ 62 crore against ₹ 5.4 crore loss (YoY). The company’s standalone revenue dropped by 2.6 percent at ₹ 1,160 crore against ₹ 1,191.1 crore (YoY).

Standalone EBITDA rose 67.3 percent at ₹ 215 crore against ₹ 128.7 crore (YoY) while EBITDA margin stood at 18.6 percent against 10.8 percent (YoY).

The stock was trading at ₹ 168.40, down ₹ 0.45, or 0.27 percent at 12:05 hours. It has touched an intraday high of ₹ 173.80 and an intraday low of ₹ 167.

The stock has been in focus after ace investor and owner of supermarket chain D-Mart, Radhakisan Damani raised stakes in the cement maker. He has been piling on the shares of India Cements for almost a year now. His individual stake in the company stood over 11 percent in December 2020 against over 10 percent in September 2020.

As of September 2020, Damani family owned a combined stake of 20.4 percent in the cement maker. According to exchange data, it has now increased to 21.14 percent.

The Board of Directors of the company, at its meeting held on January 27, 2021 appointed Krishnan Skandan as a Non-executive Independent Director of the Company for a period of three consecutive years with effect from January 27, 2021, subject to the approval of shareholders, it said in an exchange filing.

India’s eight key infrastructure sectors witness decline for 8th consecutive month

Sarthak Yadav — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 14:17:05 +0000

Eight key infrastructure sectors in India witnessed an output decline for the 8th consecutive month. A decline of 2.5%, weighed down by a fall in production of crude oil, natural gas, petroleum refinery production, and steel.

As per figures released by the Department for Promotion of Investment and Internal Trade (DPIIT), remaining sectors posted an increase in production in October, with coal at 11.6%, fertiliser at 6.3%, cement at 2.8% and electricity at 10.5%.

Refinery products, with the highest weight of 28.04% in the index, registered the sharpest drop of 17%. It was followed by natural gas at 8.6%, crude oil at 6.2%, and steel at 2.7%.

In September, the core sector contraction had narrowed to 0.8% giving hopes of resurgence in manufacturing activity and economic revival but the October figures indicate that improvement may be gradual.

According to the release, during the April-October 2020-21 period, the eight-core sector has posted a decline of 13%.