Balrampur Chini Mills plans to increase cane throughput to increase sugar, ethanol, and cogeneration revenues, as well as expand distillery operations to increase the share of ethanol in the overall revenue mix. A change in the cane variety mix is also planned.
According to Vivek Saraogi, Chairman and Managing Director of Balrampur Chini, the company’s crushed cane volume increased marginally during the October 2021September 2022 sugar season, but recovery fell by 37 basis points due to crop decline and a significant increase in precipitation across two mills. Cane illness, on the other hand, hampered recovery in two other mills. The distillery sector made up for the underperformance in cane crushing. The company reported a 1% increase in revenue and a 10% increase in net profit.
The company plans to increase cane throughput from 87.5 lakh tonnes (lt) to 110 lt, which will assist boost sugar, ethanol, and cogeneration income while increasing the total scale of operations. During the current fiscal year, it plans to commission a distillery expansion from 560 KLPD (kilo liter per day) to 1,050 KLPD.
“The expansion is being built at a lower capital cost per liter than the current greenfield average, indicating that we will not only become larger but also more lucrative.” “This is likely to raise the amount of ethanol in our overall revenue mix from 19% in FY22 to close to 35% when the ethanol expansion is fully utilized,” Saraogi stated in the company’s most recent annual report (202122).
The two ethanol projects — the extension of the 1 KLPD distillery in Balrampur and the new 320 KLPD greenfield facility in Maizapur — are planned to raise installed capacity to 1,050 KLPD by November 2022, making it Uttar Pradesh’s largest ethanol producer. The current sugar and ethanol realizations will have an impact on its production mix.
