Balmer Lawrie & Co. Ltd., a Miniratna I PSE under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India announced the unveiling of its new Industrial Packaging plant for steel drum manufacturing at Vadodara, Gujarat today. Mr. Prabal Basu, Chairman & Managing Director inaugurated the new manufacturing facility in the presence of Directors and Senior Officials of the Company. Balmer Lawrie is India’s largest 210L MS Drum manufacturer with a pan-India 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, where the MS Drum market is the fastest growing in India. 

On the occasion, a press conference was organized at Vivanta, Vadodara during which Mr. Basu, C&MD addressed the media.  

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. However, considering the growth opportunity in the Gujarat market, the Vadodara plant was set up to meet the needs of the major drum-consuming locations such as Dahej, Bharuch, Baroda, Ankleshwar, Palanpur and Kutch. 

The new plant is spread over an area of around 13,700 sqm and has modern machinery, technical capability and trained manpower to successfully produce high quality drums for its customers including MNCs. The various noteworthy features of the plant include 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 etc. The plant has the capability to produce a 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 it would scale up.