Panyam Cement and Mineral Industries Ltd(PCMIL) incorporated in 1955 has diverse interests in cement, chemical and engineering. The company's cement plant at Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, has an installed capacity of 5.31 lac TPA. Other capacities are 10000 tpa for steel wire, 14850 tpa for calcium carbide and 1800 tpa for acetylene black.
PCMIL manufactures portland cement under the brand name Pyramid. Its steel wire division came into existence when Deccan Wires was amalgamated with the company. The company's major clients include Union Carbide, Geep Industrial Syndicate, Lakhanpal National, IOC, Chemplast, etc.
It installed additional generating sets to overcome the power cuts imposed by the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Board. Its cement division is in the process of fabricating a grate cooler in-house, to change the existing planetory cooler which will enhance the capacity of the kiln.
In 1999-2000, the operations in the chemical division continued to be suspended and the company is seeking permission for closure of the division. The cement division is also under strain due to steep fall in realisations.
The Cement Division was incurring losses due to its inability to operate continuously at optimum levels on account of inadequate working capital and high cost of production. Thereafter, the Cement Unit resumed production activities from May, 2006 onwards. The Company modernized cement unit by enhancing the capacity of the kiln No.1 from 550 M.Tonnes per day to 1800 TPD costing Rs 70 Crores in 2008.
In 2011-12, the modernization of Kiln No.1 for increasing its capacity from 550 TPD to 1800 TPD was completed and the kiln was commissioned on 10th August, 2011.
During FY 2016-17, the Railway Siding works were completed, which got cleared by the Railway Authorities. The Company started dispatching of cement and also started getting coal by rakes, resulting in reduction of logistic costs. Further, the secondary crusher works got completed, which increased the output of the raw mills considerably. This again resulted in the reduction of power consumption in the raw mills sections. The Company installed a bucket elevator for the transportation of ground raw meal from the mills in place of F.K.Pumps and Air Lift Pump. This resulted in reduction of power consumption and also facilitated the transfer of material among the storage and blending silos.
The Company began its grinding operations from 08th May, 2022, restarted the cement plant and started clinker production from 02nd March, 2023.