Tamil Nadu Newsprint & Papers Ltd.
Tamil Nadu Newsprint & Papers Ltd. (TNPL), promoted by the Government of Tamil Nadu in 1979, is into production of business stationary, classical writing, computer stationary, newsprint, premium printing, quality printing. TNPL has the largest bagasse-based plant in the world and a mill with the largest production capacity in India with an installed capacity of 2,45,000 tons per annum. It is the market leader in computer stationary and the largest exporter of wood-free paper.
TNPL manufactures a range of high-quality, surface-sized maplitho paper to suit any kind of printing, sheet-fed or web offset. Its plants are at Pugalur, Karur district. The company has two unique advantages. First, it makes paper out of cheap and fixed-cost bagasse. Second, it can completely switch from newsprint to printing and writing paper and vice versa depending on market conditions.
Investment Rationale
· The Mill Expansion Plan for increasing the paper production capacity from 2,45,000 tpa to 4,00,000 tpa is expected to be implemented by March 2010.
· The company has completed the Rs 565 crore mill development plan that would see its captive pulp production capacity increase from 500 tonne per day to 720 tonne per day. The benefit of this expansion plant would start accruing from May 2008. This will help the company to control the cost of raw material and insulated it from the fluctuating pulp costs in the international market. An added benefit is that the new pulp mill follows the elemental chlorine free process, an environment friendly process.
· The company continues to enjoy its relatively lower reliance on wood as it makes paper primarily from Bagasse- a sugarcane waste product, which is abundant and cheap, as compared to wood, which is scarce and expensive. In order to further de-risk the company’s exposure to volatile wood pulp prices, TNPL has raised its pulpwood plantation in 29,962 acres under farm forestry and captive plantation schemes including 10,616 acres added during current year.
· TNPL is also setting up a mini cement plant having a capacity of 400 tpd at capex of Rs.40-45 crore for producing high-grade cement using the lime sludge and fly ash generated in the process of manufacture of paper. TNPL will be the first mill from Paper Industry to produce high-grade cement from the lime sludge and fly ash, the waste materials in paper manufacturing.
· Company is also proposing to construct an IT Park in the surplus land (63.5grounds) it holds on the outskirts of Chennai.
· TNPL is all set to enter into carbon trading having got its bio-methanation plant registered as a clean development mechanism (CDM) project with UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). This is the country`s first ever CDM project in the waste management sector to be registered with UNFCCC. TNPL emerges as the first paper mill in India that registered a CDM project with UNFCCC.
