EPIROC Expects BH Drills Market To Recover In 2019

The mining equipment market had seen a sharp drop of around 50 percent in 2017, because of factors like the GST and very low amount of tenders from the PSUs. However, 2018 seems to be a better year and looks like it can recover the losses in demand suffered in the previous calendar. Consequently, Animesh Nandy, Business Line Manager, Drilling Solutions, Epiroc Mining India Ltd, tells Madhumita Mookerji that the company is bullish on India and is looking to invest a sizeable amount in the next 2 years in India apart from the investments already injected in their Hyderabad and Nashik facilities in 2017. Epiroc Mining India Limited manufactures blasthole drills, hydraulic drills, pneumatic drills, waterwell drilling rigs, underground trucks, ventilation fans and other equipment that find applications in various mineral and metal mines. Excerpts from an interview:

- Madhumita Mookerji

Please walk me through your product portfolio of mining drills and how much of exposure does Epiroc have in the iron ore and coal mining sectors?

I head the ‘Drilling Solutions Division’ of Epiroc Mining India Limited. Here, we supply different sizes of blast-hole drills for mining, drills for the CBM and oil and gas segments and also waterwell drills. Blast-hole drills are the major products for the Indian market. We have two manufacturing facilities, one at Nashik where we manufacture smaller blast hole drills for the Indian market and waterwell drills for exports. We have the larger portfolio of BH drills and O&G drills which come from our factory located at Garland, United States.

These BH drills are used in all the volume mines in India, be it a mineral mine ie, coal, limestone or a metal mine like iron ore or copper etc. Our business in coal is the biggest segment wherein Coal India (CIL subsidiaries), Singareni Collieries Company (SCCL) and Reliance (Sasan) are three of the biggest customers in this segment. In metals, we serve companies like NMDC, Tata Steel, SAIL etc. We are also present in bauxite, zinc and copper mines segments. Limestone is the third largest segment we cater to, where almost all big cement companies are our clients, amongst others.

More than 80 percent of our exposure is in coal. In iron ore, however, we enjoy around 90 percent market share in the segment we operate. In coal, our market share is around 60 percent. In the smaller segment, our share is very high, at 80-90 percent, since this market itself is very small. Thus, we have a substantial market share in all the three segments that we are present in.