Despite the COVID-19 triggered crisis, Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd (KMML) has registered a turnover of ₹783 crore and a net profit of ₹112 crore in 2020-21 fiscal. “KMML is the top profit-making enterprise among State PSUs in the last five years, registering a profit of ₹530 crore during the period,” said chairman K. Elangovan.
While all the three units of KMML performed exceptionally, the Titanium Sponge Unit registered a record production volume of 260 tonnes and profit of ₹50 lakh.
According to managing director J.Chandrabose, mineral separation unit also did well by recording a profit of ₹3.44 crore. While the renovation and diversification projects enabled the company to achieve the feat, the dip in production and export to countries like China turned out to be an added advantage.
Various projects
KMML had spent around ₹120 crore for various projects including the implementation of froth floatation system used for the separation of individual minerals.
Switching from LPG to LNG helped the company to reduce production cost and the scarcity of raw material was addressed by transporting mine
ral sand from Thottapally. With the commissioning of the modern 70 tonne per day oxygen plant, the company could save around ₹10 crore a year that was earlier used to buy oxygen from other manufacturers.
The plant that started functioning in October 2020 has so far supplied over 1,029 tonnes of medical oxygen also.
The company officials are hoping to supply 200 tonnes of oxygen for medical needs every month. Technology renovation in mineral separation unit, modern fire safety measures, bag filter system, package boiler, DCS system and new R&D building also helped the company to scale new heights.
At present various projects to the tune of ₹30 crore are being implemented at KMML.
The works of the pipeline for transporting fuel from Kochi, cooling tower, liquid nitrogen storage facility, brine chiller compressor, renovation of acid regeneration plant, new boiler plant and energy efficient tickle preheater are currently under way.
Regularised
The company had also regularised 733 Land Acquired Persons Association (LAPA) employees and bagged Kerala State Energy Conservation Awards 2020 in the ‘Large-scale energy consumer category.’
