The Hindu Business Line : Hindustan Newsprint’s new output record

Kochi, April 4 Hindustan Newsprint Ltd operated at 116 per cent capacity and surpassed previous production and sales records. Having produced and sold 1,16,111 tonnes of newsprint during 2007-08, the company also maintained its track record of beginning the new financial year with zero stocks for the fifth year in a row.

The customer base of HNL which include all the major newsprint publishing houses in India, stands testimony to the superior quality of its newsprint which is comparable with international standards and is the outcome of technological up-gradation and modernisation of production process and process controls, a press release issued here said.

The company was also able to execute export orders from neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka and Malaysia during the course of the year.

The unprecedented rise in prices of steel, fibrous raw materials, chemical inputs and fuel has created an adverse business environment for the company at the beginning of this year. However HNL plans to offset these conditions through successful completion of various ongoing capital schemes and through implementation of various energy conservation schemes aimed at reducing costs and increasing productivity.

In tandem with the unprecedented growth of the economy, the demand for all grades of paper is on the rise. The demand growth expected for writing and printing paper grades is between 7 and 8 per cent. This is to be viewed against the fact that the present average per capita per annum consumption of paper in the country is only 7 kg, against the world average of 54 kg. The present scale of operations of HNL is uneconomical when compared to international standards. In addition, operating with a single product - newsprint – increases the vulnerability of the mill operations to price volatilities in global transactions, the press release pointed out.

In order to ensure the survival of the company it has to leverage the manifold opportunities in the writing and printing segment. To overcome the uncertainties of operating at very low scales compared to global averages the company is in the process of implementing an Expansion cum Diversification Project (EDP). EDP envisages HNL to migrate to value added varieties of writing and printing paper. It is expected that EDP will upscale the capacity to reasonable levels while significantly mitigating the risks inherent with a single product.

More Stories on : Performance | Paper | rd & Newsprint

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page