- Dalmia Bharat Cement is planning to expand beyond southern and eastern India and become a pan-India player by setting up units in the western and northern parts of the country.
- The company is set to mark its entry into Maharashtra with the acquisition of Murli Cement through the corporate insolvency route, while in the Rajasthan, it is in the process of acquiring land to put up a plant there.
- Besides, Dalmia Bharat is also investing about Rs 3,000 crore to strengthen its eastern market by ramping up the installed capacity from 26 million tonnes per annum to around 32 million tonnes per annum by March 2020.
- The company has also shown interest to acquire Emami Cement with around 8 million tonnes per annum capacity.
- The rupee was down 4 paise at 71.20 per US dollar in opening deals on Friday (18.10.2019) due to increased demand for the greenback from importers.
- Brent crude oil futures was down 0.47% at $ 59.57 per barrel.
- From a plunge in launches to falling sales of housing units, the data indicates that real estate developers are in dire straits despite a slew of measures announced by the government to revive the sector.
- According to the latest data from realty consultancy firm PropTiger, new launches shrank by 45% in top nine metros during the July-September quarter (Q2) over the same period last year. The number has come down to 33,883 units in Q2 this financial year from 61,679 units launched during the same quarter last year. The number is lower by a third from the previous quarter (April-June), when some 49,800 units were launched.
- CMD of Knight Frank India, said that the measures by the government are mostly focused on affordable housing segment, leaving out the vast majority of real estate market. These measures have not helped infuse confidence in the stakeholders, as the real challenge lies in demand side, where end users are unwilling to make home purchases owing to lack of financial confidence.
- Supply of coal by state-owned CIL to the power sector registered a decline of 7% to 218.4 million tonnes in the April-September period of the ongoing fiscal. This comes amid the maharatna firm recently stating it was ensuring smooth supply to power plants.
- According to official data, fuel supply by Coal India (CIL) in the year-ago period was 235 million tonnes. The supply of coal to power sector by CIL last month dropped by 21.1% to 28.3 million tonnes over 35.9 million tonnes in September last fiscal.
- Workers of a private firm engaged in two mines of Talcher Coalfield in Odisha have halted coal production while operations in another open cast project of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) remained paralysed for the eighth day on Thursday 17, 2019. Coal production of at least 16,800 tonne at Lingaraj OCP and about 18,000 tonne at Kaniha OCP was affected due to the disruption by workers of the private firm since Wednesday demanding better service conditions.
- Overburden removal of about 30,000 tonne of coal a day, 10,000 tonne of coal production and equal quantity of coal despatch to consumers, including NALCO, JITPL, JSPL, BSL and GMR, have been affected due to the disruption at Balram OCP.
- However, mining operations resumed from the second shift on Wednesday after a meeting between villagers and the local project management.
- Domestic giant Coal India on Thursday (17.10.2019) said that dry-fuel supplies by its largest producing arm South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) will go up following operationalisation of a new 44-km railway line in Chhattisgarh.
- The 44-km line from Kharsia to Korichapar is part of the East Rail Corridor, being developed by Chhattisgarh East Railway Ltd (CERL), a special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed by the government of Chhattisgarh, IRCON International Ltd and SECL.
- SECL is expected to play a lead role in Coal India’s 1 billion tonne coal production target by 2025-26 with a contribution of around 26% at 262 million tonnes.