Indian copper firm SWIL Ltd will gradually raise output from July at their new plant, which recently started production after a six-year delay, a senior company official said on Thursday.
SWIL, set to become India's third-largest copper maker once its plant reaches full capacity of 70,000 tonnes a year, will operate at about 60 percent of installed capacity from July, said the official, who declined to be identified.
"We are now in the stabilisation period. We will gradually increase copper output and produce at the full capacity level in the next fiscal year ending in March 2006," the official said.
The company was expected to produce 500 tonnes of copper cathode in April and 1,000 tonnes in May, up from about 200 tonnes in March, he said.
SWIL started trial production at the smelter in western Gujarat State in late March. A consortium of lenders including ICICI Bank and Industrial Development Bank of India owns a 64.61 percent stake.
The company, which produces copper cathodes with 99.995 percent purity and LME (London Metal Exchange) grade A specification, plans to export 40 percent of its output. It has already exported about 50 tonnes to Bangladesh.
SWIL is using copper scrap as a raw material to produce the metal as it is facing problems in importing copper concentrate, an intermediate product, because of tight supply and firm prices in the global market, the official said.
Swedish group Boliden has provided technology to the company that can make copper from scrap as well as concentrates.
"Copper concentrate imports are not viable at the moment as TC/RCs are practically nil in the spot market," he said.
Processing charges or treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) are fees paid by miners to smelters for processing concentrate into metal, and indicate their profit margins on the metal.
Comments
Comments are closed.