Hindustan Copper eyes 1,200 Cr. Capital Expenditure for FY’20

State-owned copper producer Hindustan Copper Ltd. (HCL), has announced that it is aspiring to achieve a capital expenditure target of Rs 1100-1200 Cr. in the fiscal year 2019-2020 almost double from last year’s expenditure of Rs.592.43 Cr.

Hindustan Copper – Impressive Figures

Hindustan Copper had recorded an ore production of 41.22 lakh tonnes in FY 2018-19, which was highest ever in the last 21 years. Owing to this it transferred a total payout of Rs 58 Cr. consisting of Dividend Rs 48.11 Cr and Dividend Tax Rs 9.89 Cr for 2018-19. This is the highest dividend paid by the Company in the past five years.

Hindustan Copper is now aiming high with a production target of 51.5 lakh tonnes which is 25% higher than last year’s total production. This is in line with its aim to ramp up production to 200 lakh tonnes in the next 6 years.

Hindustan Copper’s Projects Under Progress

The company currently owns eight mines out of which four are operational. The current year’s CAPEX is planned to be spent on three different verticals viz. expansion of the operating mines, reopening the closed mines and creating greenfield mines.

The projects which shall undergo expansion are:

• Flagship Malanjkhand Copper Project with an increase in production from present 2 Mtpa to 5 Mtpa
• Khetri, Kolihan and Banawas will see a compound increase from existing 1 Mtpa to 3.1 Mtpa
• Surda Mines in Jharkhand will witness an increase in the depth of the mine resulting in increased production capacity from 0.4 Mtpa to 0.9 Mtpa

The reopening plans include:

• Rakha mine near Jamshedpur in the state of Jharkhand
• Chapri-Sidheswar mine at Ghatsila

The required licenses for the creation of new greenfield mines have also been obtained.

In a statement published in Business Standard, Hind Copper chairman and managing director, Mr. Santosh Sharma said “We have a stated commitment of Rs 600 crore for the year but we are setting an optimistic internal target of Rs 1100-1200 crore. This can be achieved if all the proposed projects get rolling.”

Silver Lining for the Allied industries

The steady growth and robust performance have given hope of better buying market rates to industries like Wire and Cable Industry, Utensils Industry, Instruments manufacturing, etc. Especially, after closing of the largest copper smelter plant in India Sterlite Copper, the buyers were mainly dependent on copper imports. If HCL is able to achieve its long term target of 200 lakh tonnes it would be a huge relief to the aforementioned dependent industries.