Vishwaraj Sugar Industries Ltd (VSIL) on Monday announced its expansion plan and said it will invest ₹250 crore to set up a new ethanol plant in Karnataka.
At present, VSIL has a sugarcane crushing capacity of 11,000 tonnes per day, distillery capacity of 1 lakh litres per day, co-generation capacity of 36.4 MW, and vinegar manufacturing capacity of 70,000 litres per day.
In a statement, the sugar company said: “We plan to move up the value chain by targeting new clientele in the pharmaceuticals, health supplements and nutraceuticals. Razor-sharp focus on high-value high-margin products, such as pharma grade sugar and ethanol, is expected to increase the revenue per ton of sugarcane crushed over the next five years. Also, we plan to ramp up the capacity by for ethanol taking total to 500,000 liters per day.”
VSIL announced plans to set up a greenfield ethanol production facility, having a capacity of 2.5 lakh litres per day, within 80 km from the existing factory in the Belagavi district.
Additionally, the company plans brownfield ethanol production expansion by capacity of 150,000 liters per day. This expansion is driven by technological up-gradation and the company is filing a patent to that effect. This will increase the overall ethanol production capacity to 250,000 liters per day, the company said.
The expansion will happen in the existing premises by November 2023.Further, the company is planning to set up a Greenfield Ethanol Production Facility, having final capacity of 250,000 liters per day, within 80 kms from the existing factory in the Belagavi district.
VSIL has already acquired 120 acres of land for this project. “The estimated project investment is ₹250 crore and the first full year of operation of this facility shall be FY 2024,” it informed.
In the normal course, price realisation per litre of ethanol stands at ₹62.7 for the ethanol produced from sugarcane syrup, and ₹57 for the ethanol produced from molasses. But, in the case of pharma-grade ethanol, the price realisation goes up to ₹67 per litre, it explained.
VSIL said the company has entered into contracts with oil marketing companies for supplying 25 million litres of ethanol commencing from December 2021, as against the supply of 22.5 million litres of ethanol during the 12-month period ended in November 2021.
The company has already commenced a supply of ethanol for the current period.
Recently, the company reported a net profit of ₹20.67 crore for the nine months period ended December 2021, as compared to ₹4.17 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.
