Praj Industries awarded distillery orders by Bajaj Hindustan

Bajaj Hindustan, India's largest sugar company, has awarded a contract for the supply of technology, plant and equipment for three distillery projects to Praj Industries Ltd. Once commissioned, Bajaj Hindustan's production capacity will increase by half-a-million litres per day, making it one of the largest alcohol producers with a total capacity of a little under one million litres per day.

These contracts add up to eight contracts in a row from Bajaj Hinustan to Praj Industries in the past three years. The last project for the sugar major's Kinauni plant is currently under commissioning.

"With production of ethanol doubling world over, it is expected that opportunities will also expand", says Pramod Chaudhari, chairman, Praj Industries, which has already started entering the developed markets of EU and the US. It received a major order from a European beet sugar manufacturer for engineering and supply of equipment for the very first fuel ethanol project to be set up in the UK, making it a major breakthrough for the Indian company.

The company has been working with a number of feedstock suppliers for ethanol production and has set up plants based on ethanol production from maize, sorghum (Praj Industries cultivates sweet sorghum to make blended fuels), rice and even tapioca.

"As envisaged we see a surge of interest in ethanol as a fuel amongst countries as small as Malawi to as large as the US. It just shows that ethanol is here to grow and will become only more attractive as the usage increases," says Chaudhari.

"In India, there is an expansion in the market also due to beverage alcohol which is being produced from grains. As ethanol becomes a writing on the wall, we will see more and more interest in grains," adds Chaudhari.

These opportunities are expected to provide Praj Industries a major fillip in the coming year. "We are treating this year as a consolidation year in preparation of the volume growth in business in the coming period". The company has already invested in expansion of its manufacturing capacity and R&D facility. The technical manpower base has also gone up.