Overview

Chemicals Business is a key constituent of our Power intensive commodities businesses and makes us one of the few fully integrated chloro-vinyl producer in the country .

Our chemicals business comprises chlor-alkalis and related chemicals including caustic soda lye & flakes, liquid and gaseous chlorine, hydrochloric acid, stable bleaching powder, compressed hydrogen and sodium hypochlorite.

The company which is also the third largest manufacturer of Chlor-Alkali in the country, has manufacturing facilities at Kota, Rajasthan 330 TPD and at Bharuch, Gujarat 440 TPD both based on the environmentally sound membrane cell technology. DSCL is both one of the lowest cost and most efficient manufacturers of Chlor-alkali in the country. The company also has 12.5 million cubic meters bottling capacity for Hydrogen produced at the complex and a 9,900 TPA capacity for stable bleaching powder.

Competitive Strengths

We derive our competitive advantages in this business from our backward and forward integration, access to efficiently generated captive power and high quality raw materials, a well-entrenched sales and marketing organisation, and long term customer relationships.

Captive Power Generation

The Chemicals business being highly energy intensive is vulnerable to the availability and cost of power with such costs constituting two-thirds of all direct costs. Whereas around 35-40% of the capacity in India is based on purchased power, DSCL already has in place a reliable and un-interrupted source of captive power that it is augmenting further. To this date cost and efficiencies of power continues to be one of the significant differentiators across the industry. The company operates two captive power facilities that cater to the needs of its Chemicals business- a coal-based facility at Kota rated at 130 MW and a 55 MW coal based facility at its Bharuch facility.

Large Captive Consumption of Chlorine

In the chlor-alkali business, the two co-products – chlorine and caustic soda – have varying demand cycles. This leads to surpluses of chlorine or caustic soda, depending upon the business cycle and demand conditions. Any surplus of caustic soda is easier to manage, but a surplus of chlorine, which is hazardous in nature, can pose a challenge to manufacturers, as they will either need to invest to utilise the surplus chlorine or sell it at unprofitable prices by reduce operating rates. We have a large captive consumption of chlorine within our manufacturing facilities, because we use it to produce other value added products. This advantage emanates from our integrated manufacturing, which also makes us one of the most efficient players in the sector.