JK Cement has commissioned a 3 MTPA Grey Cement plant in Buxar, Bihar, taking its total capacity to 31.26 MTPA and placing it among India’s top five grey cement producers. The ₹500 crore investment strengthens the company’s national footprint while supporting Bihar’s infrastructure growth and local economic development.

JK Cement Ltd., one of India’s leading cement manufacturers, has announced the commissioning of its new state-of-the-art Grey Cement plant in Buxar, Bihar, marking a significant milestone in the company’s growth trajectory. With the commissioning of this facility, JK Cement’s total production capacity has increased to 31.26 million tonnes per annum (MTPA), enabling the company to cross the 30 MTPA threshold.

This expansion positions JK Cement among the top five Grey Cement manufacturers in India, strengthening its national footprint and reinforcing its long-term growth strategy.

Commenting on the strategic achievement, Dr Raghavpat Singhania, Managing Director, JK Cement, said, “Crossing 31 MTPA is a significant turning point in JK Cement’s expansion and demonstrates the scale, resilience, and aspirations of our company. In addition to making a significant contribution to Bihar’s development vision, the commissioning of our Buxar plant represents a strategic step towards expanding our national footprint. We are committed to developing top-notch manufacturing capabilities that boost India’s infrastructure development and generate long-term benefits for local communities.”

The Buxar plant has a capacity of 3 MTPA and is spread across 100 acres. Strategically located on the Patna–Buxar highway, the facility enables faster and more efficient distribution across Bihar and adjoining regions. While JK Cement entered the Bihar market last year through supplies from its Prayagraj plant, the Buxar facility will now allow the company to serve the state locally, with deliveries possible within 24 hours across Bihar.

Sharing his views on the expansion, Madhavkrishna Singhania, Joint Managing Director & CEO, JK Cement, said, “JK Cement is now among India’s top five producers of grey cement after the Buxar plant commissioning. Our capacity to serve Bihar locally, more effectively, and on a larger scale is strengthened by this facility. Although we had already entered the Bihar market last year using Prayagraj supplies, local manufacturing now enables us to be nearer to our clients and significantly raise service standards throughout the state. Buxar places us at the center of this chance to promote sustainable growth for both the company and the region in Bihar, a high-growth market with strong infrastructure momentum.”

The new facility represents a strategic step in supporting Bihar’s development vision by ensuring faster access to superior quality cement for infrastructure, housing, and commercial projects. JK Cement has invested approximately ₹500 crore in the project. Construction began in March 2025, and commercial production commenced on January 29, 2026.

In addition to strengthening JK Cement’s regional presence, the Buxar plant is expected to generate significant direct and indirect employment opportunities and attract ancillary industries, thereby contributing to the local economy and the broader industrial ecosystem.

Jignesh Kundaria, Director & CEO, Fornnax Recycling Technology

As 2026 begins, Fornnax is accelerating its global growth through strategic expansion, large-scale export-led installations, and technology-driven innovation across multiple recycling streams. Backed by manufacturing scale-up and a strong people-first culture, the company aims to lead sustainable, high-capacity recycling solutions worldwide.

As 2026 begins, Fornnax stands at a pivotal stage in its growth journey. Over the past few years, the company has built a strong foundation rooted in engineering excellence, innovation, and a firm commitment to sustainable recycling. The focus ahead is clear: to grow faster, stronger, and on a truly global scale.

“Our 2026 strategy is driven by four key priorities,” explains Mr. Jignesh Kundaria, Director & CEO of Fornnax.

First, Global Expansion

We will strengthen our presence in major markets such as Europe, Australia, and the GCC, while continuing to grow across our existing regions. By aligning with local regulations and customer requirements, we aim to establish ourselves as a trusted global partner for advanced recycling solutions.

A major milestone in this journey will be export-led global installations. In 2026, we will commission Europe’s highest-capacity shredding line, reinforcing our leadership in high-capacity recycling solutions.

Second, Product Innovation and Technology Leadership

Innovation remains at the heart of our vision to become a global leader in recycling technology by 2030. Our focus is on developing solutions that are state-of-the-art, economical, efficient, reliable, and environmentally responsible.

Building on a decade-long legacy in tyre recycling, we have expanded our portfolio into new recycling applications, including municipal solid waste (MSW), e-waste, cable, and aluminium recycling. This diversification has already created strong momentum across the industry, marked by key milestones scheduled to become operational this year, such as:

• Installation of India’s largest e-waste and cable recycling line.
• Commissioning of a high-capacity MSW RDF recycling line.

“Sustainable growth must be scalable and profitable,” emphasizes Mr. Kundaria. In 2026, Fornnax will complete Phase One of our capacity expansion by establishing the world’s largest shredding equipment manufacturing facility. This 23-acre manufacturing unit, scheduled for completion in July 2026, will significantly enhance our production capability and global delivery capacity.

Alongside this, we will continue to improve efficiency across manufacturing, supply chain, and service operations, while strengthening our service network across India, Australia, and Europe to ensure faster and more reliable customer support.

Finally: People and Culture

“People remain the foundation of Fornnax’s success. We will continue to invest in talent, leadership development, and a culture built on ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement,” states Mr. Kundaria.

With a strong commitment to sustainability in everything we do, our ambition is not only to grow our business, but also to actively support the circular economy and contribute to a cleaner, more sustainable future.

Guided by a shared vision and disciplined execution, 2026 is set to be a defining year for us, driven by innovation across diverse recycling applications, large-scale global installations, and manufacturing excellence.

Cement’s deep decarbonisation cannot be achieved through efficiency and fuel switching alone, making CCUS essential to address unavoidable process emissions from calcination. ICR explores if with the right mix of policy support, shared infrastructure, and phased scale-up from pilots to clusters, CCUS can enable India’s cement industry to align growth with its net-zero ambitions.

Cement underpins modern development—from housing and transport to renewable energy infrastructure—but it is also one of the world’s most carbon-intensive materials, with global production of around 4 billion tonnes per year accounting for 7 to 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions, according to the GCCA. What makes cement uniquely hard to abate is that 60 to 65 per cent of its emissions arise from limestone calcination, a chemical process that releases CO2 irrespective of the energy source used; the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) therefore classifies cement as a hard-to-abate sector, noting that even fully renewable-powered kilns would continue to emit significant process emissions. While the industry has achieved substantial reductions over the past two decades through energy efficiency, alternative fuels and clinker substitution using fly ash, slag, and calcined clays, studies including the IEA Net Zero Roadmap and GCCA decarbonisation pathways show these levers can deliver only 50 to 60 per cent emissions reduction before reaching technical and material limits, leaving Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) as the only scalable and durable option to address remaining calcination emissions—an intervention the IPCC estimates will deliver nearly two-thirds of cumulative cement-sector emission reductions globally by mid-century, making CCUS a central pillar of any credible net-zero cement pathway.

Process emissions vs energy emissions
Cement’s carbon footprint is distinct from many other industries because it stems from two sources: energy emissions and process emissions. Energy emissions arise from burning fuels to heat kilns to around 1,450°C and account for roughly 35 to 40 per cent of total cement CO2 emissions, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). These can be progressively reduced through efficiency improvements, alternative fuels such as biomass and RDF, and electrification supported by renewable power. Over the past two decades, such measures have delivered measurable gains, with global average thermal energy intensity in cement production falling by nearly 20 per cent since 2000, as reported by the IEA and GCCA.
The larger and more intractable challenge lies in process emissions, which make up approximately 60 per cent to 65 per cent of cement’s total CO2 output. These emissions are released during calcination, when limestone (CaCO3) is converted into lime (CaO), inherently emitting CO2 regardless of fuel choice or energy efficiency—a reality underscored by the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Even aggressive clinker substitution using fly ash, slag, or calcined clays is constrained by material availability and performance requirements, typically delivering 20 to 40 per cent emissions reduction at best, as outlined in the GCCA–TERI India Cement Roadmap and IEA Net Zero Scenario. This structural split explains why cement is classified as a hard-to-abate sector and why incremental improvements alone are insufficient; as energy emissions decline, process emissions will dominate, making Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) a critical intervention to intercept residual CO2 and keep the sector’s net-zero ambitions within reach.

Where CCUS stands today
Globally, CCUS in cement is moving from concept to early industrial reality, led by Europe and North America, with the IEA noting that cement accounts for nearly 40 per cent of planned CCUS projects in heavy industry, reflecting limited alternatives for deep decarbonisation; a flagship example is Heidelberg Materials’ Brevik CCS project in Norway, commissioned in 2025, designed to capture about 400,000 tonnes of CO2 annually—nearly half the plant’s emissions—with permanent offshore storage via the Northern Lights infrastructure (Reuters, Heidelberg Materials), alongside progress at projects in the UK, Belgium, and the US such as Padeswood, Lixhe (LEILAC), and Ste. Genevieve, all enabled by strong policy support, public funding, and shared transport-and-storage infrastructure.
These experiences show that CCUS scales fastest when policy support, infrastructure availability, and risk-sharing mechanisms align, with Europe bridging the viability gap through EU ETS allowances, Innovation Fund grants, and CO2 hubs despite capture costs remaining high at US$ 80-150 per tonne of CO2 (IEA, GCCA); India, by contrast, is at an early readiness stage but gaining momentum through five cement-sector CCU testbeds launched by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) under academia–industry public–private partnerships involving IITs and producers such as JSW Cement, Dalmia Cement, and JK Cement, targeting 1-2 tonnes of CO2 per day to validate performance under Indian conditions (ETInfra, DST), with the GCCA–TERI India Roadmap identifying the current phase as a foundation-building decade essential for achieving net-zero by 2070.
Amit Banka, Founder and CEO, WeNaturalists, says “Carbon literacy means more than understanding that CO2 harms the climate. It means cement professionals grasping why their specific plant’s emissions profile matters, how different CCUS technologies trade off between energy consumption and capture rates, where utilisation opportunities align with their operational reality, and what governance frameworks ensure verified, permanent carbon sequestration. Cement manufacturing contributes approximately 8 per cent of global carbon emissions. Addressing this requires professionals who understand CCUS deeply enough to make capital decisions, troubleshoot implementation challenges, and convince boards to invest substantial capital.”

Technology pathways for cement
Cement CCUS encompasses a range of technologies, from conventional post-combustion solvent-based systems to process-integrated solutions that directly target calcination, each with different energy requirements, retrofit complexity, and cost profiles. The most mature option remains amine-based post-combustion capture, already deployed at industrial scale and favoured for early cement projects because it can be retrofitted to existing flue-gas streams; however, capture costs typically range from US$ 60-120 per tonne of CO2, depending on CO2 concentration, plant layout, and energy integration.
Lovish Ahuja, Chief Sustainability Officer, Dalmia Cement (Bharat), says, “CCUS in Indian cement can be viewed through two complementary lenses. If technological innovation, enabling policies, and societal acceptance fail to translate ambition into action, CCUS risks becoming a significant and unavoidable compliance cost for hard-to-abate sectors such as cement, steel, and aluminium. However, if global commitments under the Paris Agreement and national targets—most notably India’s Net Zero 2070 pledge—are implemented at scale through sustained policy and industry action, CCUS shifts from a future liability to a strategic opportunity. In that scenario, it becomes a platform for technological leadership, long-term competitiveness, and systemic decarbonisation rather than merely a regulatory burden.”
“Accelerating CCUS adoption cannot hinge on a single policy lever; it demands a coordinated ecosystem approach. This includes mission-mode governance, alignment across ministries, and a mix of enabling instruments such as viability gap funding, concessional and ESG-linked finance, tax incentives, and support for R&D, infrastructure, and access to geological storage. Importantly, while cement is largely a regional commodity with limited exportability due to its low value-to-weight ratio, CCUS innovation itself can become a globally competitive export. By developing, piloting, and scaling cost-effective CCUS solutions domestically, India can not only decarbonise its own cement industry but also position itself as a supplier of affordable CCUS technologies and services to cement markets worldwide,” he adds.
Process-centric approaches seek to reduce the energy penalty associated with solvent regeneration by altering where and how CO2 is separated. Technologies such as LEILAC/Calix, which uses indirect calcination to produce a high-purity CO2 stream, are scaling toward a ~100,000 tCO2 per year demonstrator (LEILAC-2) following successful pilots, while calcium looping leverages limestone chemistry to achieve theoretical capture efficiencies above 90 per cent, albeit still at pilot and demonstration stages requiring careful integration. Other emerging routes—including oxy-fuel combustion, membrane separation, solid sorbents, and cryogenic or hybrid systems—offer varying trade-offs between purity, energy use, and retrofit complexity; taken together, recent studies suggest that no single technology fits all plants, making a multi-technology, site-specific approach the most realistic pathway for scaling CCUS across the cement sector.
Yash Agarwal, Co-Founder, Carbonetics Carbon Capture, says, “We are fully focused on CCUS, and for us, a running plant is a profitable plant. What we have done is created digital twins that allow operators to simulate and resolve specific problems in record time. In a conventional setup, when an issue arises, plants often have to shut down operations and bring in expert consultants. What we offer instead is on-the-fly consulting. As soon as a problem is detected, the system automatically provides a set of potential solutions that can be tested on a running plant. This approach ensures that plant shutdowns are avoided and production is not impacted.”

The economics of CCUS
Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) remains one of the toughest economic hurdles in cement decarbonisation, with the IEA estimating capture costs of US$ 80-150 per tonne of CO2, and full-system costs raising cement production by US$ 30-60 per tonne, potentially increasing prices by 20 to 40 per cent without policy support—an untenable burden for a low-margin, price-sensitive industry like India’s.
Global experience shows CCUS advances beyond pilots only when the viability gap is bridged through strong policy mechanisms such as EU ETS allowances, Innovation Fund grants, and carbon Contracts for Difference (CfDs), yet even in Europe few projects have reached final investment decision (GCCA); India’s lack of a dedicated CCUS financing framework leaves projects reliant on R&D grants and balance sheets, reinforcing the IEA Net Zero Roadmap conclusion that carbon markets, green public procurement, and viability gap funding are essential to spread costs across producers, policymakers, and end users and prevent CCUS from remaining confined to demonstrations well into the 2030s.

Utilisation or storage
Carbon utilisation pathways are often the first entry point for CCUS in cement because they offer near-term revenue potential and lower infrastructure complexity. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that current utilisation routes—such as concrete curing, mineralisation into aggregates, precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC), and limited chemical conversion—can realistically absorb only 5 per cent to 10 per cent of captured CO2 at a typical cement plant. In India, utilisation is particularly attractive for early pilots as it avoids the immediate need for pipelines, injection wells, and long-term liability frameworks. Accordingly, Department of Science and Technology (DST)–supported cement CCU testbeds are already demonstrating mineralisation and CO2-cured concrete applications at 1–2 tonnes of CO2 per day, validating performance, durability, and operability under Indian conditions.
However, utilisation faces hard limits of scale and permanence. India’s cement sector emits over 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually (GCCA), far exceeding the absorptive capacity of domestic utilisation markets, while many pathways—especially fuels and chemicals—are energy-intensive and dependent on costly renewable power and green hydrogen. The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) cautions that most CCU routes do not guarantee permanent storage unless CO2 is mineralised or locked into long-lived materials, making geological storage indispensable for deep decarbonisation. India has credible storage potential in deep saline aquifers, depleted oil and gas fields, and basalt formations such as the Deccan Traps (NITI Aayog, IEA), and hub-based models—where multiple plants share transport and storage infrastructure—can reduce costs and improve bankability, as seen in Norway’s Northern Lights project. The pragmatic pathway for India is therefore a dual-track approach: utilise CO2 where it is economical and store it where permanence and scale are unavoidable, enabling early learning while building the backbone for net-zero cement.

Policy, infrastructure and clusters
Scaling CCUS in the cement sector hinges on policy certainty, shared infrastructure, and coordinated cluster development, rather than isolated plant-level action. The IEA notes that over 70 per cent of advanced industrial CCUS projects globally rely on strong government intervention—through carbon pricing, capital grants, tax credits, and long-term offtake guarantees—with Europe’s EU ETS, Innovation Fund, and carbon Contracts for Difference (CfDs) proving decisive in advancing projects like Brevik CCS. In contrast, India lacks a dedicated CCUS policy framework, rendering capture costs of USD 80–150 per tonne of CO2 economically prohibitive without state support (IEA, GCCA), a gap the GCCA–TERI India Cement Roadmap highlights can be bridged through carbon markets, viability gap funding, and green public procurement.
Milan R Trivedi, Vice President, Shree Digvijay Cement, says, “CCUS represents both an unavoidable near-term compliance cost and a long-term strategic opportunity for Indian cement producers. While current capture costs of US$ 100-150 per tonne of CO2 strain margins and necessitate upfront retrofit investments driven by emerging mandates and NDCs, effective policy support—particularly a robust, long-term carbon pricing mechanism with tradable credits under frameworks like India’s Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS)—can de-risk capital deployment and convert CCUS into a competitive advantage. With such enablers in place, CCUS can unlock 10 per cent to 20 per cent green price premiums, strengthen ESG positioning, and allow Indian cement to compete in global low-carbon markets under regimes such as the EU CBAM, North America’s buy-clean policies, and Middle Eastern green procurement, transforming compliance into export-led leadership.”
Equally critical is cluster-based CO2 transport and storage infrastructure, which can reduce unit costs by 30 to 50 per cent compared to standalone projects (IEA, Clean Energy Ministerial); recognising this, the DST has launched five CCU testbeds under academia–industry public–private partnerships, while NITI Aayog works toward a national CCUS mission focused on hubs and regional planning. Global precedents—from Norway’s Northern Lights to the UK’s HyNet and East Coast clusters—demonstrate that CCUS scales fastest when governments plan infrastructure at a regional level, making cluster-led development, backed by early public investment, the decisive enabler for India to move CCUS from isolated pilots to a scalable industrial solution.
Paul Baruya, Director of Strategy and Sustainability, FutureCoal, says, “Cement is a foundational material with a fundamental climate challenge: process emissions that cannot be eliminated through clean energy alone. The IPCC is clear that in the absence of a near-term replacement of Portland cement chemistry, CCS is essential to address the majority of clinker-related emissions. With global cement production at around 4 gigatonnes (Gt) and still growing, cement decarbonisation is not a niche undertaking, it is a large-scale industrial transition.”

From pilots to practice
Moving CCUS in cement from pilots to practice requires a sequenced roadmap aligning technology maturity, infrastructure development, and policy support: the IEA estimates that achieving net zero will require CCUS to scale from less than 1 Mt of CO2 captured today to over 1.2 Gt annually by 2050, while the GCCA Net Zero Roadmap projects CCUS contributing 30 per cent to 40 per cent of total cement-sector emissions reductions by mid-century, alongside efficiency, alternative fuels, and clinker substitution.
MM Rathi, Joint President – Power Plants, Shree Cement, says, “The Indian cement sector is currently at a pilot to early demonstration stage of CCUS readiness. A few companies have initiated small-scale pilots focused on capturing CO2 from kiln flue gases and exploring utilisation routes such as mineralisation and concrete curing. CCUS has not yet reached commercial integration due to high capture costs (US$ 80-150 per tonne of CO2), lack of transport and storage infrastructure, limited access to storage sites, and absence of long-term policy incentives. While Europe and North America have begun early commercial deployment, large-scale CCUS adoption in India is more realistically expected post-2035, subject to enabling infrastructure and policy frameworks.”
Early pilots—such as India’s DST-backed CCU testbeds and Europe’s first commercial-scale plants—serve as learning platforms to validate integration, costs, and operational reliability, but large-scale deployment will depend on cluster-based scale-up, as emphasised by the IPCC AR6, which highlights the need for early CO2 transport and storage planning to avoid long-term emissions lock-in. For India, the GCCA–TERI India Roadmap identifies CCUS as indispensable for achieving net-zero by 2070, following a pragmatic pathway: pilot today to build confidence, cluster in the 2030s to reduce costs, and institutionalise CCUS by mid-century so that low-carbon cement becomes the default, not a niche, in the country’s infrastructure growth.

Conclusion
Cement will remain indispensable to India’s development, but its long-term viability hinges on addressing its hardest emissions challenge—process CO2 from calcination—which efficiency gains, alternative fuels, and clinker substitution alone cannot eliminate; global evidence from the IPCC, IEA, and GCCA confirms that Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) is the only scalable pathway capable of delivering the depth of reduction required for net zero. With early commercial projects emerging in Europe and structured pilots underway in India, CCUS has moved beyond theory into a decisive decade where learning, localisation, and integration will shape outcomes; however, success will depend less on technology availability and more on collective execution, including coordinated policy frameworks, shared transport and storage infrastructure, robust carbon markets, and carbon-literate capabilities.
For India, a deliberate transition from pilots to practice—anchored in cluster-based deployment, supported by public–private partnerships, and aligned with national development and climate goals—can transform CCUS from a high-cost intervention into a mainstream industrial solution, enabling the cement sector to keep building the nation while sharply reducing its climate footprint.

– Kanika Mathur