Economy & Market

“The challenge is to move cement from the warehouse to the consumer?s site”

Published

12 years ago

September 30, 2014

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Rohit Vohra Head Logistics, Reliance Cement

The total cost of logistics considering inbound and outbound movement can come up to 20 to 25 per cent of cement production cost. This is for companies having good infrastructure such as rail sidings, etc., and who transport 40 to 60 per cent product by rail. For companies that do not have such facilities, the cost can go as high as 30 per cent of the cement cost. Rohit Vohra highlights the challenges faced by cement companies in last mile deliveries. Excerpt from the interview.

How much is the cost contribution of logistical expenses to cement cost?
The cost of transporting cement via road comes to about Rs 1 to 3 /tonne/km. The wide range is due to the variation in lead distance, which can range from anywhere between 50-300 km. Longer the distance, lower is the cost of transport. Railway on other hand costs Rs 1.3 to 1.4/tonne/km. However, railway has additional fixed costs related to loading and unloading.

The handling cost is high for railways. So for a distance below 200 km rail is not viable. We generally outsource the unloading process to the C&F agents.

What are the losses experienced in cement transport via rail wagons?
Railways charge a fixed fare based on the number of wagons employed. If the wagon is not loaded completely, the company will still end-up paying for the entire wagon. One area where cement is lost is due to spillage from torn or damaged bags. Many a times the floor of the wagon is in bad constitution and may have sharp edges that damage the cement bags during transit. To minimise such loss we are using specialised packing material for our cement bags. These bags are not lifted using metal hooks. Instead the workers put a sort of wire loop around it and pick it up. Although the cost of loading and unloading too gets escalated with this, the end customer gets quality cement in quality packing.

What are the challenges faced by cement companies in last mile delivery?
The challenge in last mile delivery is that today we have lesser number of stockists. Now nobody wants to stock cement in warehouses. The rental charges of warehouses are too high for stocking a low margin product like cement. So dealers prefer ordering the material straight from the plant to the consumer site.

Now consumers require quick delivery, and on several occasions the delivery is to be made in congested city areas. These locations often have limitations on the size of trucks that could ply on the roads. Hence, we have to use smaller vehicles, which are cost inefficient. Companies then have to set up a very good network of warehouses close to the market so as to be able to reach the customer as quickly as possible. But again, setting up a warehouse means additional loading and unloading at the company?s expense. The moment you create an additional node in your supply chain, the cost of handling and distribution goes up. Plus, dispatch from these warehouses is also costly since transporters are moving material over short distances. So the cost of transport per tonne per km is high.

What are the constraints that you have to deal with in cement transport?
We put cement delivery process in two buckets. One is from plant to the warehouse and the other is where we transport cement from warehouse to the site. When we are moving cement from the plant to the warehouse we have the loading and unloading process and the associated cost in our control. The material is transported in multi-axle carriers with a capacity of around 27 tonnes. Mostly the approach road to the warehouse is good and the time required to load and unload is fixed and short. So here the costs are very much in the company?s control.

The challenge is to move cement from the warehouse to the consumer?s site. Many cities have restrictions on the size of trucks that can move round the clock. Cities like Nagpur, Bhopal, etc., do not allow trucks with more than 8-tonne capacity to ply on the roads. While at some places like Rajasthan, where highways are good we transport cement in 60-tonne trailers. Often the size of order placed by end consumers is small and we have to dispatch 4-5 tonnes of material.

Today the customers to want delivery of cement as and when required. They usually do not have space to store cement and other construction materials. Storing cement is a hassle and implies additional cost. Simply handling a cement bag costs Rs 2-3 and so everyone tries to avoid it. The traders to want the cement to be delivered directly from company warehouse to the site, not to the shop.

What can be done to cut down that cost?
We have a system where dealers can order at ex-warehouse price and can arrange for their own vehicle. That creates a synergy since the dealer can ship other items such as steel, paint, bricks, etc., in the same truck.

How about outsourcing this function?
We have been considering outsourcing this function. However, service providers do not find cement transport as profitable as they would find transporting high value retail products like electronic goods, etc. In cement the margins are low, and so it is less attractive to external logistics service providers.

Railways have plenty of surplus land, however they do not have clear policy for land allotment. Most major companies have their own cement siding. What the industry needs is rail side warehouses. We are looking for opportunities to set up terminals close to siding. Having a rail side warehouse minimises cost of product handling.

How to you manage the fluctuations in cement demand?
There are basically two types of fluctuations, the seasonal and the demand driven. Seasonal changes are seen in the trade segment while demand driven fluctuations are seen in non-trade segment. We have kept a balance of having trade to non-trade segment in 70:30 ratio. That stabilises the demand pattern.

The industry generally experiences good demand during the October-June period. This is the time when the company builds up reserve stock of cement at the plant. The industry experiences low demand during the July-August period. During this period we conduct operation and maintenance tasks at the plant.

Major fluctuations are taken care by the surplus stocks at the plant while minor fluctuations are dealt with at the warehouse level.

Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

4 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.