Kolkata, India — With plastic consumption expected to grow in northeast India, one molder there is investing to expand water tank production to more high-volume blow molding manufacturing processes.
Suraj Logistix Pvt. Ltd. recently opened a $2.5 million blow molding factory in the eastern state of Jharkhand to make four layer water tanks, said Director Prakash Kumar Khemani.
“The four layer blow mold tank market is growing at the rate of 20 percent annually in eastern India and to meet the demand, our new plant started production two months ago with 15 million liter capacity per month,” he said in an interview at the Indplas 2015 show in Kolkata in late November.
Suraj, based in Jamshedpur, also makes water tanks using rotational molding. But processors in the region are increasingly investing in blow molding because of its lower production costs.
Eastern India's blow molded tank market currently has five processors with collective installed capacity of 30 million liters per month. Capacity for rotomolded tanks, by comparison, is estimated at about 100 million liters per month.
But more construction of organized housing complexes and offices is driving demand for more water tanks. Suraj plans for a second blow molded tank production facility with capacity of 10 million liters per month.
“We will soon come with our second blow mold tank plant at a location called Dhulagarh, around 10 kilometers from Kolkata, and it would likely to be operational by March 2016,” Khemani said.
Suraj plans to import machinery for that plant from either China or Germany, he said.
“Bengal is in development mode now and we have strategically identified Dhulagarh as a plant location to cater to the market of the neighboring state of Orissa,” said Khemani.
Plastic consumption per capita in Eastern India lags behind the rest of country, with the area around Kolkata and West Bengal state at about half of the level of the rest of the country.
But regional plastics associations are hoping to close that gap with some large petrochemical investment slated for that part of India.