Exide announces major expansion projects in Haldia

Exide announces major expansion projects in Haldia

·      To set up India’s largest battery recycling plant with Italian technology

·      Get into high-tech Nickel-Cadmium battery manufacture

Exide Industries Ltd, the country’s largest lead-acid storage battery maker, announced plans for significant expansion in West Bengal’s port city of Haldia where it already has its largest battery manufacturing plant.

“We are embarking on a two-pronged strategy to make Haldia one of the largest and integrated self-sufficient battery making centers in South-East Asia where we manufacture everything from recycled lead to finished battery,” said Mr Gautam Chatterjee, Managing Director and CEO ofExide Industries. “While on the one hand we will expand the existing battery making plant on a 20 acre piece of land allotted to us by the Kolkata Port Trust authorities, on the other hand we will set up a greenfield battery recycling plant with latest European technology on another piece of 20 acre land allotted to us by Haldia Development Authority” Mr Chatterjee added.

Earlier in the day, West Bengal’s Minister for Transport and Environment and Chairman of Haldia Development Authority, Mr. Suvendu Adhikari laid the foundation for the two plants.

The battery manufacturing expansion project and the greenfield battery recycling plant will be funded by the company’s internal reserves. In the current financial year of 2018-19 the company plans a capital expenditure of Rs 1100 crore. Bulk of that will be spent on these two projects.

The Battery Recycling Plant

In collaboration with Italy’s Energitech Technologies, one of the leading players in this field, the lead recycling plant in Haldiawill have a monthly capacity of 15,000 metric tonnes, making it the country’s largest lead recycling plant. The plant will employ environmentally safe and latest state-of-art technologies conforming to technical norms set by the Basel Convention.

Exide already operates two lead recycling plants near Pune and Bangalore. Their combined monthly capacity is 11,500 metric tonnes of recycled lead. Exide’s lead recycling business is carried out by its wholly owned subsidiary Chloride Metals Ltd which clocked a turnover of Rs 2013 crore in financial year 2017-18. Exide uses over 40 per cent recycled lead in its batteries, making them more environment friendly.

The Expansion Project

Exide’s expansion project in its current manufacturing facility envisages setting up of a massive 40,000 square meter shed where it will carry out three activities. Manufacture of Nickel-Cadmium batteries, setting up of a mega charging station and additional battery manufacturing capacity.

The mega charging facility for 2 lakh batteries per month will employ latest European technology of closed loop charging system which is not only environmentally a lot safer but also requires much less power.

Additionally, the company will also now get into manufacture of Nickel-Cadmium batteries in technical collaboration with Furukawa of Japan. These are extremely high end batteries for sophisticated applications like in Bullet Trains, Metro Rail and other critical installations where they require absolutely fail proof batteries.