More than production, the COVID-19 lockdown has impacted the movement of the cement outside the plant, said Rajnish Kapur, COO at JK Cement on Monday.

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Speaking to CNBC-TV18, he said, “At this point of time lockdowns have not impacted the production per se in any of our operations. However, what we are now witnessing is on the supply side, where we are now finding some of the cities where the cities have entered into partial kind of lockdown, some places it is night curfew and in some cities especially in MP where the day movement is also not allowed so the movement of the cement outside the plant is something which has got affected.”

On raw material prices, Kapur said, “Raw material cost is a matter of concern, pet coke has risen close to Rs 109-110 percent and today imported pet coke is going higher side of $ 126 per tonne. Similarly, coal prices have increased by 54 percent so these two combined would have an impact of anything about Rs 250 per tonne on the cost of production.”

He further added, “We are actually looking at total power and fuel cost increase of somewhere in the region of Rs 250-275 in the Q1 and Q2 of the coming year. There doesn’t seem to be any indicators at this point in time that the cost is going to go down. There has been a marginal increase in the price of Rs 5-10 in the markets where we operate.”

On industry growth and demand, Kapur said, “As an industry demand we are not that much concerned at this point of time, we feel that the country has got enough to work upon. I am not really saying that the price increase by letting us say Rs 10 kind of price increase is going to have any material impact on the demand. As an industry, we are looking at something between 10 and 12 percent growth in the current FY which has just started.”

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(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)

First Published:Apr 12, 2021 10:32 AM IST