EID-Parry’s ₹600-crore sugar refinery, a port-based SEZ, will commence operations by the month-end.

The refinery, established through subsidiary Silkroad Sugar Pvt Ltd, goes onstream eight years after it was announced in 2006 as a joint venture with Cargill Asia Pacific. This is a significant development for the Murugappa Group company, which expects to start operations at the refinery in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, in about a week’s time. The company has also decided to expand the capacity.

The delay had been due to the company not being allocated adequate natural gas supplies to operate the power plant. The refinery, which was operated for about a year in 2010 and 2011, was then shut down.

EID-Parry has now set up a 10-MW coal-based plant to power the unit. In 2012, Cargill exited the venture and EID-Parry bought its 49 per cent stake to make the refinery a wholly-owned subsidiary. A Vellayan, Chairman, EID-Parry, said the 6-lakh-tonne-a-year unit will initially operate at about 4 lakh tonnes and reach full capacity in 2015-16. The plan is to expand the capacity to 10 lakh tonnes in 2016-17 with an additional investment of about ₹100 crore.

The SEZ refinery will use imported raw sugar – including imports from EID-Parry’s own mills – to refine and export white sugar.

Company officials said the plant has a potential to generate a business of ₹1,200 crore.

Buoyant sugar prices and cost control have contributed to EID-Parry reporting a multi-fold growth in net profit for the fourth quarter of the last fiscal against the year-ago quarter.

The company has reported a net profit of ₹85.39 crore (₹5.42 crore) on a total income of ₹550.71 crore (₹659.26 crore).