How is the material handling market faring in India? How has been the 2019 for your business?
The current business scenario of the material handling segment in the country is quite challenging. Traditionally, the major investment for the material handling in India has been in thermal power stations for coal handling plants. However, with a steady shift from thermal power projects to renewables, the investment in material handling projects has been muted. In the coming years, possibilities of mechanisation of mining industry are expected to be a major driver for the material handling segment.
Indian economy has witnessed slowdown in 2019. Has it affected your business in any way?
Despite 2019 being a challenging year for the material handling industry, due to our wide range of products, we have been able to meet our order inflow. Significant investments were made in Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) plants by thermal power plants in India. thyssenkrupp has Wet Ball Mills that are designed to meet our requirements and are tailored for FGD Plants.
Which industries are driving the growth of material handling division?
As mentioned earlier, mechanisation of material handling systems in existing large mines has been initiated and we are expecting many new material handling projects in the coal mining sector. Also, the government has identified large blocks for the pilot round of bidding for commercial mining to give momentum to the industry.
thyssenkrupp, with its cutting edge technologies and products which are manufactured within the country like Mobile Crushing Plants and Semi Mobile Crushing Plants, is well poised to cater to the demand in the mining sector.
thyssenkrupp has developed a specialised Compact Bucketwheel Excavator which can excavate hard rock without drilling and blasting. We see a lot of interest in this product by mining companies and we are working together with them and see a lot of potential in this segment.
Apart from mining sector, we also expect good demand in Petrochemical Sector (for Pet Coke Crushing, Storage & Conveying Systems) as well as Port Sector.
Please tell us about your division’s technological innovations. / Tell us about one of the projects that stand tall amongst rests.
R&D and Innovation play an essential role in thyssenkrupp. Our team continuously strives to improve the technological features of our machines. As mentioned earlier, we have developed a special Compact Bucketwheel Excavator which can excavate hard rock without drilling and blasting. This is a unique product and has the potential to transform the mining industry in India. We are very bullish about this equipment in the Indian market due to substantially low OPEX.
We have also developed a special steep angle pipe conveyor which can convey material at an angle of 35 degree which can improve the efficiency of the mines significantly. This product can reduce the movement of dumpers within the mine and will help in reducing diesel consumption, environmental issues, safety issues, etc.
We recently launched “Eccentric roll crusher” at Bauma, Munich, Germany. This crusher has substantially low head room which will be very useful for underground mines.
How do you look at the coming year? What are your expectations from 2020?
We recently launched a new crusher “RBC 4000” in EXCON 2019. “RBC 4000” is a hydraulic cone crusher with a feed opening of 300 mm and capacity ranging from 244 tph to 425 tph and gap setting (closed side setting) ranging from 25 mm to 40 mm.
This cone is useful for secondary and tertiary crushing of hard rock crushing for aggregates production, limestone crushing for cement industries, iron ore crushing for graded product outputs and metallic and non-metallic mineral ore crushing. Being a large capacity machine, it can replace two such crushers which can reduce the plant footprint size, OPEX and electricity cost which will benefit the customers significantly.
thyssenkrupp has built up strong infrastructure, design team, manufacturing base and supply chain in India. thyssenkrupp is planning to leverage this unique advantage for its global market by offering certain product lines only out of India. In the coming years it is also planned to serve certain geographies with Indian office being in the lead. We are quite excited and look forward to 2020 with lot of positivity.