21 January, 2025 16:47:48 IST 
Himadri Speciality Chemical Ltd. (HSCL), a Kolkata-based producer of coal tar based products, has announced plans to expand into the extraction of high-value products, with a capex of Rs. 120-crore, funded through internal accruals.
“This facility will enable the extraction high-value speciality products, including Anthraquinone, Carbazole, Fluorene from existing coal tar distillates at our existing facility and is expected to commence operations within the next 18 months. These products have application in dyes, pigments, pharma and various other industries,” the company said in a statement.
The speciality carbon black maker will be producing the new value-added products as a forward integration process at its existing Singur plant in West Bengal.
“These will be new products, which will be produced for the first time in India. The company will forward-integrate its existing coal tar distillates to produce the high value-added speciality products,” informed Mr. Anurag Choudhary, CMD and CEO, HSCL.
Anthraquinone, which has applications in dye, paper, hydrogen peroxide and agriculture, had a global market size of around $4.96-bn in 2023 and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5 percent by 2032.
Carbazole and fluorene had global markets of around $1.2-bn and $1.73-bn in 2023 and 2024, respectively. While carbazole has applications in pharmaceuticals, electronics, polymeric materials and agrochemicals, fluorene is used in pharmaceuticals, plastics and agrochemicals.
“The domestic market size would be around 20 percent of the global market. The new value-added products can be used as import substitution in the domestic market. And, we will be supplying these products all over the world - Europe, the US and South-East Asia,” Mr. Choudhary informed.
Carbon black expansion
The company also announced a scaling up of capacity at its Singur facility to enhance carbon black production from 180-ktpa to 250-ktpa by Q3 FY26. Speciality carbon black capacity will rise from 60-ktpa to 130-ktpa, positioning the company as the fourth-largest global producer in this high-value segment.
According to Mr. Choudhary, the electric vehicle (EV) sector in India is poised to attract $40-bn in investments, with 70% of this allocated to Lithium-ion Battery (LiB) manufacturing. Additionally, in late 2024, the Government of India approved a $1.3-bn incentive scheme for EVs, with one-third of the funds dedicated to the PM E-Drive scheme. For LiBs, in the cathode active material space, LFP continue to be the leading technology, with graphite anodes dominating the anode technology. Silicon-carbon based anodes are well poised to bring about significant improvement in charging times, increase in energy density and significant increase in range coverage for EVs, thus helping to popularise EVs from an end-user’s perspective. “Himadri’s progress on development of these technologies and its LFP cathode project is moving forward as planned,” he said.
“The revamp of Birla Tyres is progressing at full speed, and we are set to commence commercial operations soon. Over the next two to three years, we will be ramping up production across various tyre segments,” Mr. Choudhary added.
HSCL has recently been awarded with EcoVadis Platinum medal, which recognition is awarded to the top 1% of companies assessed by EcoVadis in the world amongst more than 130,000 assessed companies globally.
