Hyderabad, May 21, 2024……Balu Forge Industries Limited (BFIL), a prominent precision engineering company engaged in manufacturing of crankshafts & forged components, announces the acquisition of three forging lines in a combination of Hammers & Presses capable of producing 72,000 tonnes p.a. of heavy forged products.
Disclosing this in a press note issued in Hyderabad today, the company said, these newly acquired forging lines will seamlessly integrate with the precision engineering expansion taking place at its upcoming manufacturing campus in Belagavi, Karnataka thereby making BFIL an integrated one-stop solution provider for advanced machining solutions for critical industries viz. Railways, Defence, Oil & Gas, Mining, Aerospace, Defence, Aluminium & other essential precision industries globally.
The new forging unit will be seamlessly integrated with the recently acquired precision machining unit of Mercedes Benz. This will further strengthen our product engineering & increase our precision product offerings to global majors operating in the critical engineering & safety components industry with end-to-end solutions under one roof.
This forging unit includes a 16-ton closed-die forging hammer, ranking amongst the largest in the country and capable of producing forgings up to 800-900 kgs. This capacity will be further enhanced with a 10-ton closed-die forging hammer line and an 8,000-ton capacity mechanical forging press. With these facilities, it is advancing our presence in engineering critical industries viz. Oil and Gas, Aerospace, Defence, Railways, Mining, Aluminium and Auto part manufacturing and many other critical industries.
This acquisition strengthens and expands our critical engineering products portfolio and enhances R&D capabilities in alloy mixing & metal combinations BFIL informed. It provides us unique strength in creating products from different alloys based on Aluminum to Titanium which shall enable BIFL to expand its product offering to major growth industries for critical engineering products and to further capture the OEM market that we cater to across North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East regions.
Mumbai, India – Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, and AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, driving digital transformation and sustainability, announced today that their combined technology offerings are supporting the sustainability initiatives of mining companies in four key pillars: energy efficiency, yield improvement, low greenhouse emission technology adoption, and new green processes.
Global decarbonization is heavily reliant on the sustainable production of minerals and commodities. A thriving and healthy mining and metals sector is crucial for the global economy and to support the innovation of new technologies and materials needed for climate change reduction, environment protection, and the circular economy.
Schneider Electric and AVEVA are providing the tools required by organizations to make informed decisions that will empower people across the mining, minerals, and metals value chains to be more strategic in their choices based on sound advice with sustainability in mind. They are assisting operators and managers in these choices leaving these organizations well positioned to tackle some of the challenges associated with adopting sustainable practices, potentially resulting in reduced operating costs and thus providing the rare ability of appeasing all stakeholders.
According to an IDC Technology Spotlight, sponsored by AVEVA and Schneider Electric, Transitioning to Sustainable Mining, Minerals and Metals Practices, the top three market pressures driving the sustainability agendas of mining and metals organizations are:
• Need to improve brand equity
• Reduce the risk of an adverse event
• Ensure compliance with current and future regulations
Ben Kirkwood, Senior Research Manager, IDC Energy Insights – WW Mining (
“Technology has a critical role to play in supporting mining companies,” said Ben Kirkwood, Senior Research Manager, IDC Energy Insights – WW Mining. “Efforts to hit sustainability targets and gain greater visibility and control over operations will enable corporate insight and action relating to energy, water usage, and management of the operational environment. IDC’s global analysis of the revenue growth and profitability of industrial companies shows that those with a committed and ongoing sustainability-based strategy combined with a long-term, funded, digital transformation agenda considerably outperform their competitors.”
Digitalization Underpins Mining and Metals Sustainability
The IDC Technology Spotlight also reinforces the fact that as the industry continues to experience backlash from its perceived stagnant position on sustainability, platforms with added analytics are enabling improved operational efficiencies while enhancing the visibility of the changes being made.
“Digitally integrated operations can address key areas of an organization’s
David Willick, VP North America, Mining, Minerals and Metals Segment, Schneider Electric
sustainability agenda by combining power and process intelligence and controls,” said David Willick, VP North America, Mining, Minerals and Metals Segment, Schneider Electric. “Digitalization is a critical evolution for the resources industry, and Schneider Electric and AVEVA are uniquely qualified to help. We are experts at marshalling the power of connected systems and human insight to bring operational performance to its highest level. Together, we have won the trust of the world’s leading companies with thousands of implementations onsite and in the cloud. Today our joint customers can benefit from our shared customer-centric innovation culture, unmatched R&D capabilities, and extensive sector-specific expertise.”
Martin Provencher, Industry Principal, Mining, Metals and Materials, AVEVA
“Although the benefits of digital transformation are crystal clear, the mining industry has thus far been limited by legacy infrastructure, data inadequacies, and piecemeal optimization programs,” said Martin Provencher, Industry Principal, Mining, Metals and Materials, AVEVA. “Increasingly virulent cyberattacks and a growing mandate for decarbonized minerals have further emphasized the importance of having high data availability and embracing a secure, cloud-first approach to visualize and contextualize enterprise-wide processes across global operations. The combination of Schneider Electric’s energy management solutions, automation systems and services, and AVEVA’s Digital Mining Transformation solutions enable our customers to transform conventional mining operations into intelligent, resilient and sustainable undertakings.”
Corporate Knights recently named Schneider Electric the world’s most sustainable company. According to the IDC Technology Spotlight, Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure platform combined with AVEVA’s Digital Mining and Metals Transformation solutions can provide the operational and organizational insight required to make sustainable operations and improved decisions through the collection and analysis of data. The partner companies aim to decarbonize the mining, minerals and metals value chains through the provision of an industrial IoT platform with technology and software elements supporting the capability for energy management and automation.
The prolonged economic slowdown followed by the Covid pandemic has adversely affected almost all the sectors of the state economy. Mining is at a standstill and Tourism, which was the highest revenue-generating sector for the State, has all but dried up and inflows of visitors are at a standstill.
This has caused huge discomfort and financial distress to the state and its people. It is estimated by various agencies that the state’s tourism industry which is the second-largest revenue earner in the state, has lost about Rs 1,000 crore worth of business because of the lockdown. On October 14, the Goa government approved the state’s tourism policy after a prolonged wait of six years and when the sector is in most distress.
The policy document envisages tourism for the next 25 years with a vision to make the state the most preferred destination around the year for high spending tourists by 2024. The government has made a provision for setting up a new tourism board, which will be the backbone for all decisions pertaining to planning, development and marketing of tourism in Goa.
Now, the government is solely depending on tourism to increase its dwindling revenues. The state, which collected Rs 15,000 crore in revenues last year, is already facing a 70 per cent revenue shortfall in the current fiscal in the past couple of months.
In this backdrop, it is of paramount importance that mining resumes in the State of Goa at the earliest. “We welcome the proactive steps taken by Hon’ble Chief Minister of Goa Dr. Pramod Sawant for the resumption of mining activities in the State wherein he had a meeting with Hon’ble Prime Minister and Union Mines Minister.
We are hopeful that the follow-up meetings shall be held at the earliest and an appropriate decision to resume mining in the interest of State of Goa and its subjects shall be taken at the earliest. Mining resumption will provide the much-needed fillip to the State’s Coffers in form of royalty and taxes and at the same time it would also provide a viable and continuous source of livelihood to thousands of Goans in these desperate times of Covid 19 Pandemic.” Said Mr. Manoj Caculo, President, Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Aluminium, a metal of strategic importance for India to attain its goal of becoming a $5 trillion economy, continues to be a highly imported metal. This is despite India having the world’s 5th largest coal and bauxite reserves, both of which are important raw materials for aluminium production. This is in addition to the fact that India is the 3rd largest producer and consumer of aluminium globally with domestic demand expected to expand from current 4 MTPA to 12 MTPA by 2030.
For this, a multi fold growth in bauxite production from current levels of 20-22 Million Ton to 72 Million Tons per year is needed to meet the domestic requirement. To this essence, tapping the country’s 3.8 Billion Tons Bauxite reserves is a key step to gravitating India towards becoming self-reliant.
Import of bauxite, one of India’s most abundant ores, has caused an estimated forex loss of over 400 Million dollars in the last 5 years alone and caused missed opportunities of generating mass scale employment. Bauxite mining creates livelihood opportunities in regions which otherwise have limited potential for other economic activities. Opening of a single Bauxite mine has the potential to generate over 10,000 livelihood opportunities and can garner over Rs. 5,000 crores to the State revenue over the life of the mine.
Aluminium is of strategic importance and is a critical raw material in defence, transportation, electricity, aerospace, automobile, consumer durables and many more sectors. It is an essential commodity for various other industries / SMEs due to its critical role in diversified applications. With huge Investments of over Rs. 1.5 Lakh crores the sector creates over 20 lakh direct and indirect jobs and has developed over 4000 SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises in the downstream sector.
“It is a travesty that even with such abundant bauxite reserves and available aluminium capacity for value addition in the country, no Metallurgical Grade Bauxite Mines have been successfully auctioned in the last 5 years since inception of MMDR Act 2015 forcing the domestic industry to import.
The eco-friendly and sustainable mining methods lead to economic, social and environmental harmony. Thus, utilizing India’s natural bauxite dividend should be a policy priority to realise the vision of an AatmaNirbhar Bharat,” said Ansuman Das, Former Chairman and Managing Director, NALCO and metals & mining expert.
The abnormality of the arbitrary determination of Average Sale Price (ASP) of Metallurgical Grade of Bauxite linked with the selling price of the end-product Aluminium has led to various state governments being unable to auction the bauxite mineral blocks as the present system of Bauxite ASP Calculation will make the production of Aluminium unviable in the country. Additional and planned investment of over Rs. 50,000 crores in the Aluminium sector has been put on halt as it has been deemed futile in the current Bauxite Average Sale Price regime.
Indian Aluminium producers have introduced sustainability measures to restore land that has been mined to a natural and economically usable state for rehabilitation and livelihood. Land with rich bauxite reserves is mostly barren and uncultivable. After the mined-out area is reclaimed by backfilling of the top layer soil, the surface is brought back to the original ground level and then becomes cultivable.
Today, the mining commitment includes extensive re-greening of the mined land and proactive participation in the socio-economic development of communities around. There are significant opportunities to implement technology-driven scientific mining techniques in bauxite mining in India as most of India’s bauxite reserves are located on a single plateau making bulk open cast mining possible.
The time is now right to try and resolve the Bauxite Average Sale Price issue by aligning it to bring it in line with other bulk minerals, auction the available Bauxite Mines and fully utilize the potential of the domestic Aluminium Industry to become self-reliant, save precious foreign exchange which will lead to creation of wide range of employment opportunities locally while yielding rich socio-economic dividends for all stakeholders.
