Hindustan Copper aims to maintain 9-10% production growth next year

Shakeel Ahmed, CMD of Hindustan Copper, in an interview with Latha Venkatesh and Gautam Broker, spoke about the recent happenings in his company and the road ahead.

Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview. Also watch the accompanying video. Q: Could you tell us about your expansion plans? There was news of a lot of new mines opening. A: We have lined up mine expansion and re-opening of our closed mines at an estimated capex of Rs 3677 crore spread over next five years. The mines include Khetri and Kolihan at Khetri Copper Complex, Malanjkhand at Malanjkhand Copper Complex and another four mines at Ghatsila Complex. Our current capacity is 3.2 million tonnes. We plan to increase the capacity to 12.4 million tonnes by 2016-2017. Q: Can you tell us when will it come on stream? What is the volume growth year after year? A: Full capacity will come into production by 2016-2017. From 2014-2015, we will start commissioning one or the other facility. This would seek quantum jump in our production figures. Q: As production begins to ramp up, what is your expectation of margins? Would our incremental volume growth improve? A: Our cost of operations will more or less remain the same. It will marginally improve because of economies of scale and larger mines. Our profit margin in the day's to come will improve significantly, compared to today