TNPL bags Rs.7 crore Iraq order

Venkatachari Jagannathan
01 March 2004

TNPL hopes to export 30,000 tons this fiscal which would contribute Rs.80 crore export revenue.

Meanwhile, the increasing coal and ocean freight costs have put TNPL''s bottomline under pressure. TNPL is India''s lowest cost manufacturer of paper. The higher demand for coal by the Chinese is said to be behind the price increase.

TNPL imports around 40,000 ton of coal per month to fire the boilers installed at the sugar mills. The company entered into unique bagasse-steam exchange contracts with various sugar mills in Tamil Nadu. TNPL, in exchange for bagasse, would meet the cost of boilers and coal at those sugar mills.

As a matter of fact, the company''s plant at Pugallur is the world''s largest bagasse based paper plant.

Also the world''s largest bagasse based paper manufacturer, TNPL recently expanded its capacity by 50,000 tonne to 2.3 lakh tonne per annum (tpa) requiring more bagasse which in turn necessitates increased usage of coal to generate steam at sugar mills.

According to officials, the company is taking suitable measures to optimise the available coal usage and reduce the adverse impact. TNPL like any other paper exporter has also been affected by the 4 per cent reduction in the duty entitled passbook (DEPB) scheme and the strengthening of the rupee.