IBP (Merged Subsidiary of Indian Oi lCo. Limited)

Infobox_Company
company_name = IBP Co.
company_
company_type = PSU
foundation = 1909
location = India
key_people = V.C. Agrawal (Managing Director)
industry = Petroleum Products
products = Petroleum,
Explosives,
Cryogenics
revenue = loss US $2.97 billion, 2006
homepage = [http://www.ibpoil.com/]

The current Managing Director is V.C. Agrawal and as according to a news item in The Tribune it is to be merged with parent company Indian Oil Corporation in another 6 months time.Fact|date=February 2007

IBP was originally founded by Abdul Karim Abdul Shakur Jamal under the name of Jamal's oil Company limited and was renamed as Indo-Burma Petroleum Company limited in 1909.

History

IBP Co.Limited got merged with its parent company 'Indian Oil Corporation Limited' on 02-05-2007 under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India. The merger ends the history of 98 year old 'IBP Co Limited', the oldest oil company in India.

IBP Co. Limited was born in the then undivided British India as “Indo-Burma Petroleum Company Limited” a joint stock private company on 08-02-1909 at Burma, presently Myanmar.

The developments that followed second world war forced the company change its head quarters to Kolkata permitting the British Government to bombard and destroy its only refinery at Rangoon. Thereafter the company joined hands with the then Indian Oil Company (Later formed as Indian Oil Corporation Limited after merger with Indian Refineries Company Limited) and carried out business in petroleum products at Mumbai and Kolkata.

Though it was initially taken over by IOC in 1970, it got separated and formed as a public sector company in 1974 under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. By this time all the foreign private oil businesses were nationalized and made public sector companies. The Indo Burma Petroleum Company Limited changed its name to IBP Co. Limited in 1983. During 2002, it was once again acquired by the IOC and became one if its group companies.

Though predominantly an oil company, IBP diversified its activities in to engineering and chemicals. The venture in to explosives by the chemical division was, based on a suggestion from the Govt of India when the country faced acute shortage of explosives for mining industry following an accident and strikes at the only major supplier viz IEL in India in 60’s. As the country had to import huge quantities of explosives to meet consumption needs for over six months, severe difficulties were faced in storage, handling and transportation to mining areas. Finally, the Chary committee set up for the purpose strongly recommended a company to be set up in public sector for manufacture of explosives. IBP, waiting for a diversification in to chemicals, readily grabbed the opportunity and commenced its business in manufacture and marketing of industrial explosives.

The IBP’s first packaged slurry explosive manufacturing plant was set up in Korba (then in MP now in Chattisgarh) in the year 1976 under the collaboration from Ireco Inc. USA. The unit commenced its commercial production in August 1977. Thereafter the chemical division has diversified its business in to a unique technology ‘the bulk delivered slurry explosives’ with the first ever plant of its kind set up in India at Kudremukh with a capacity of 5000 Tons per annum in 1980. The first ever supply of site-mixed bulk slurry explosives took place on 20-12-1980 in a blast using 63 tons of this product. Over the past 25 years, by 20th Dec 2005 it has completed supply of 64,695 MT of SMS explosives to Kudremukh Iron Ore Project.

For IBP, the journey in bulk explosives commenced at Kudremukh continued a long way with new plants set up in both coal and metal mining sectors. The second plant came up at Singrauli (MP) in the year 1983 followed by Block-II Dhanbad (Jharkhand), Ramagundam (AP), Rampur Agucha (Rajasthan), Kusmunda (Chattisgarh) etc. In terms of volume, the production of bulk explosives reached a peak level of 55000 MT, followed by 25000 MT of packaged explosives.

Competitors

Over the years, the number of competitors in India grew from only two in the beginning to more than forty today, adversely affecting the market share in Industrial explosives of IBP from a high of around 30% down to 18%. Though the installed capacity of the company is more than 1,25,000 tons, the capacity utilization is only around 60% due to current price sensitive market and intense competition from private players. Presently, IBP is the only central public sector company servicing the market for industrial explosives. The business group experienced very high profits in the beginning when there were only two competitors (IEL and IDL) and progressively incurred losses from the late ninetees. However, a turnaround is expected in the business during the current year owing much to the reorganization of the marketing department and the required thrust planned and given by this department. This included significant volumes and price from Coal India Limited besides the thrust in the non-coal mining sector of the country that resulted in three fold increase in volumes.

New technologies

The advent of modern technologies in manufacture of explosives including emulsions lead IBP to radically change the original technology from Ireco Inc. and introduce new and cost effective technologies in both slurry and emulsion products. However, the original Ireco’s slurry technology obtained in 80’s was modified through in house marketing and R&D efforts and made superior to that of emulsion technology. Therefore, the superior techno-economic advantages of site mixed slurry explosives over that of bulk emulsion explosives were made available and the majority of IBP’s plants (9 out of 14) continue to produce highly improvised bulk slurry explosives.

The site mixed slurry explosives, as the name suggests are manufactured on site in a specially designed truck (called pumptruck) by carrying non-explosive ingredients in separate chambers, mixing them in tailor-made proportions and pumping them in liquid form directly in to bore holes. The poured mixture acquires the characteristics of an explosive within about ten minutes of pumping and solidifies slowly to the shape of the bore hole. Unlike bulk emulsions, the SMS can be pumped in various densities ranging from 0.6 g/cm³ to as high as 1.20 g/cm³ and the energy can be varied to produce twenty different types of chemically balanced explosive products to exactly the suit the rock conditions and achieve techno-economic advantages for the customers. The system eliminated the need for packaging, inventory, storage and handling of various types of explosives and thus lowered direct costs to customers.

Expansion

The expansion phase of IBP in the field of explosives still continues with plant-set up possibilities in the Cement Sector at Gulbarga, Bauxite mining (NALCO, Orissa) Lignite (NLC, Tamilnadu) and Iron ore mining (NMDC, Donimalai, Karnataka), Orissa & Rock phosphate mines of RSMM, Rajasthan etc.

Cryogenics Division

When "Operation Flood" pprogramme to produce more milk in the country was introduced in India, new technology as being adopted in the Western world wee also adopted. One of the reqirement was storing the bull's semen in the Liquid Nitrogen cntainers. The temperature of liquid nitrogen is minus 196 degree Celsius. The liquid nitrogen containers are like thermas flask used for storing hot water but with super insulation to keep cool the liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degree Celsius. For a long long time, IBP was the only company manufacturing this high technology item in India. Only recently one private player had entered the market. Still IBP is the market leader even today (2008)

References

* [http://www.indianoilcorp.com/news/IOCNews_March_2003.pdf History of IBP]