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EXCLUSIVE: India's largest zinc miner is eyeing a share of the Bangladesh economic boom

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EXCLUSIVE: India's largest zinc miner is eyeing a share of the Bangladesh economic boom
Kritti BhallaAug 2, 2021, 12:48 IST
EXCLUSIVE: India's largest zinc miner is eyeing a share of the Bangladesh economic boom
BUSINESS INSIDER INDIABI India
  • Bangladesh’s economy has lured many Indian companies like Adani, Hero and now, Hindustan Zinc is ready to tap the growth in India’s neighbouring country.
  • Bangladesh’s per capita income surpassed India’s last year, and its GDP has been growing steadily.
  • Hindustan Zinc is looking to set up a processing unit in India to export products to the South Asian market.
  • Check out the latest news and updates on Business Insider.
India’s largest zinc miner Hindustan Zinc is looking to make a segway into Bangladesh, given the economic boom in the country, which shares nearly two third of its borders with India. In 2020, Bangladesh surpassed its larger neighbour India in per capita income (PCI).

Hindustan Zinc is also working on setting up a maintenance and processing factory in Gujarat to supply Zinc to other South Asian countries. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hindustan Zinc, Arun Misra, told Business Insider that 70% of the Gujarat plant’s 0.3 million tonne capacity will go to Bangladesh and other Southeast Asian markets.

Currently, miners in Africa, mostly Chinese, sell commodities to South Korea for processing Asian markets and conversion to zinc (by competitors), before hitting the South Asian markets. “We realised that we [Hindustan Zinc] could stop that traffic midway and do it in Gujarat and then convert to metal and then supply to Southeast Asia, which is going very fast and very stable economies as of now,” CEO Misra told Business Insider in an exclusive interview as he completed his first year in the corner office.

The company currently has facilities located in five regions of Rajasthan and a zinc-lead processing and refining facilities as well as a silver refinery at Pantnagar in Uttarakhand.

Misra also highlighted two points behind their latest interest in the Bangladesh market. First, the country’s economy has been doing well. Second, Bangladesh is a land of rivers, which leads to more corrosion of metal. “We'll have more zinc galvanisation in their country. So, nearby countries have a good future for zinc,” he added.

Corrosion is a degradation of a material, especially metal, due to chemical reactions. Most metals are susceptible to corrosion and the most common form of corrosion is rusting. Water can make metal rust faster, which makes it almost a necessity to apply a protective zinc coating (galvanising) to steel or iron.

EXCLUSIVE: India's largest zinc miner is eyeing a share of the Bangladesh economic boom
BI India/Flourish
The company is getting environment clearance procedures and other regulatory processes to make this project into a reality.

Hindustan Zinc has seen a spectacular year as commodity prices including iron ore, copper and coal, around th e world have seen a spike in the last one year. Misra believes that this uptrend in commodity prices is likely to last for at least another two years. “Quote”

However, global financial services firm Macquarie, in its June 2021 report, projected a cooling down in commodity prices particularly in steel, iron ore and zinc over the next 12 months, after a stellar rally that many have called the ‘supercycle’ in commodities.

EXCLUSIVE: India's largest zinc miner is eyeing a share of the Bangladesh economic boom
BI India/Flourish

Even other Indian companies have started to take notice of the Bangladesh market. Last year, Adani Group registered a wholly owned subsidiary company named Adani Bangladesh Ports Private (ABPPL) in Bangladesh. It will also start a 1,000 acre India Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) to help Indian companies set up shop in the neighbouring country.

Other Indian companies have also invested in Bangladesh too. This includes Ashok Leyland, the Hero Group, Emami, Dabur, Asian Paints, Pidilite, Godreh, Tata Motors, Sun Pharma and others.

 
Bangladesh is a country of water, rain, and moisture that degrade metals quickly. For example, Ferrous (Fe) in a steel/ iron body gets rusted if it is in touch with water (H2O) for a long period of time creating Ferric Oxide ( Fe2O3) which is what we say rust (মরচেে).

As such, zinc coating is used to slow down the corrosion of metallic things. I think this Indian company's production or distribution facilities in BD will help its steel-made factory structures to attain longevity.
 
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Bangladesh is a country of water, rain, and moisture that degrade metals quickly. For example, Ferrous (Fe) in a steel/ iron body gets rusted if it is in touch with water (H2O) for a long period of time creating Ferric Oxide ( Fe2O3) which is what we say rust (মরচেে).

As such, zinc coating is used to slow down the corrosion of metallic things. I think this Indian company's production facilities in BD will help its steel-made many factory structures to attain longevity.

However, I am not sure if steel piles also can be coated with a proper thickness of zinc. There may be some other methods.

You are right .Zinc coatings are well established as cost-effective corrosion protection for steel bridges. The zinc coating acts first as a barrier protection, isolating the base steel from corrosive elements, and secondly by cathodic protection, acting as a sacrificial anode to protect the steel should the coating be compromised
 
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