Inauguration of Balmer Lawrie's new Steel Drum Manufacturing Plant at Vadodara

Will meet the needs of major drum consuming locations like Dahej, Bharuch, Vadodara, Ankleshwar, Palanpur and Kutch.

Balmer Lawrie and Co. Ltd., a Miniratna I PSE under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India started it's new Industrial Packaging plant for steel drum manufacturing at Savli near Vadodara. The company will eye to capture the market with its cutting edge technology and competitive price against the small operating companies.

Balmer Lawrie is India's largest 210L MS Drum manufacturer with a pan-lndia market share of around 34%. The company commissioned the Vadodara plant with the objective of catering to the large chemical industry in Gujarat with superior products and services. With a strong local presence, Balmer Lawrie will further enhance its position as a market leader in the Western Region of the country and especially in Gujarat. Prabal Basu, Chairman & Managing Director inaugurated the new manufacturing facility in the presence of Directors and Senior Officials of the Company.

The Gujarat MS Drum (210L) market has been growing at a significant pace during the last few years at a CAGR of over 21%. In contrast, the market across the country for MS drums has grown at a CAGR of only 6%. Balmer Lawrie has a state of the art High Throughput Plant for drum manufacturing at Taloja, Navi Mumbai and a plant at Silvassa to cater to the Western Region customers.

"Vadodara plant was set up to meet the needs of the major drum consuming locations such as Dahej, Bharuch, Baroda, Ankleshwar, Palanpur and Kutch. Our main competition is with the small units giving similar products with low quality. Our objective is to catering the large chemical industry in Gujarat with superior products and services," said Prabal Basu. He also added about the company plans for expansion in Gujarat and already purchased a land at Saika in Bharuch.

The new plant in Vadodara spread over an area of around 13,700 sqm with modern machinery, technical capability and trained manpower to successfully produce high quality drums for its customers including MNCs. The plant has semi auto steel drum manufacturing facility, facilities to produce plain drums as well as value added drums, online two coat epoxy coated drum manufacturing line, telescopic drum loading conveyor for automatic drum loading, tall drum manufacturing and others.

The plant has the capability to produce wide variety of MS drums while the primary focus is on 210L MS drums, the plant can produce taller drums with 235L capacity as well. The product range will also comprise of Plain Drums, Internally Coated (Lacquer) Drums and Composite Drums. Over the period, Necked in Drums and Galvanized Drums would also be produced from this plant. The plant is a zero liquid discharge plant and follows high HSE standards and the best in class manufacturing practices. The capacity of the plant is around 9-10 lakh drums per year. Initially, the plant is expected to produce around 50000 drums per month and gradually scale up the production.