Economic Times reported that Hindustan Copper has decided to set its house in order following the Center’s recent decision to put the company on the divestment list.
While the Hindustan Copper board is slated to firm up a divestment roadmap in the next 2 months, the company has earmarked on 90 day strategy to fast track its turnaround plan.
Towards this, Hindustan Copper will step up production at each of its 3 mining units; Ghatshila in Jharkhand, Khetri in Rajasthan and Malanjkhand in Madhya Pradesh. It will also intensify efforts to debug internal operations that have stifled production below target levels. Hindustan Copper, the country’s only integrated mines to metal copper producer is 99.59% government owned with 0.41% of its stock listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Mr Shakeel Ahmed newly appointed CMD of Hindustan Copper said that “We need to put our house in order before we approach the market to fund our expansion. It is a war like situation. We are putting in place a string of initiatives to achieve a turnaround within the next 3 months. I will also closely monitor daily production.”
He said that “Our operations at Khetri and Malanjkhand have been hit by acute water shortage. With no immediate solution in sight, we’ve decided to concentrate on mining rather than on refining and smelting, at least for the time being.”
He added that “We want to enter into long term, 3 years to 5 year contracts with leading OEMs like the Railways and BHEL for instance, to leverage our risk adverse nature of operations. We can also command a margin over and above the benchmark London Metal Exchange rates.”
