EID Parry (India) Ltd., one of the largest sugar manufacturers in the South, has undertaken a pilot study to establish the extraction of potash from ash produced in distilleries.
As the opportunity for potash fertilizer availability in India is plenty and since the company is already a pioneer with established technology and product, EID Parry proposes to carry out a pilot study on this concept, the company said in the annual report.
Besides, EID Parry said it was exploring avenues to convert sugar, distillery and nutra by-products (waste) into value-added products for aquaculture, poultry and animal husbandry.
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For the current fiscal, EID Parry expects to register marginal growth due to better realisation from sugar and alcohol. Retail and institutional segments are expected to register modest growth over last year and export quotas are expected to be fulfilled with better price realisations, said chairman V. Ravichandran.
However, institutional sales, which account for 20-25% of total sugar volumes, may be affected by low demand from end-user industries due to reduction in sugar consumption post the second wave.
Besides, revenues from distillery operations too are expected to be slightly affected due to lower off-take for blending of ethanol with petrol by oil refining companies and for manufacture of potable alcohol, though the sale of ethanol for manufacture of sanitisers may increase, he said.
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The chairman said it had been decided to close some of the unviable sugar units in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry due to non-availability of sufficient cane. “We decided to shift some of our capacities to the high cane growing areas of Karnataka which should augur well to utilise the capacities in a productive manner in the years to come.”
During FY22, the company is expected to incur a capex of about ₹46 crore towards expansion of the Haliyal unit.
The onset of the pandemic delayed the commissioning of the project last year and it is expected to be operational during the 2021-22 sugar season. The distillery at Bagalkot will become fully operational during 2021-22, enhancing the company’s distillery capacity by nearly 25%, Mr. Ravichandran said.
Today, the company has eight plants, spread across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and also a refinery unit of its wholly owned subsidiary in Kakinada. The distillery and co-generation plants also exist in the integrated sugar mills of the company.