Welspun Corp bags orders for more than Rs 6,000 crore to be executed through Q3 and Q4 of FY21 | Economic Times

Welspun Corp, the pipe manufacturing flagship of Welspun Group, bagged orders worth more than Rs 6,000 crore across water and oil and gas pipe segments in the second quarter, which will be executed through the rest of the year and the next.“At the end of Q2, we have an order book of more than 700,000 tonnes globally, that was valued at more than Rs 6,000 crore. This order book will be executed over Q3, Q4 and may spill over to Q1 of FY 22 as well,” Vipul Mathur, Welspun Corp’s managing director, told ET.The company has presence in India, Saudi Arabia and the US, with manufacturing facilities of around 1.85 million tonne per annum in India. The pipeline orders are from both the water and oil and gas segments, Mathur said.“Water pipes and oil & gas segment are the two sectors that are aiding recovery, and the 700,000 tonnes of order book mostly includes these segments. Out of this more than 425,000 tonne order is purely from India and the rest is from the US and Saudi Arabia,” he said.The company has planned an expenditure of Rs 1,200 crore on a ductile iron pipe-making capacity, which involves setting up a 400 KMTPA of steel-making facility which will be completed by the end of Q3 of FY 22 , amid a shortage of iron ore across the country.“All we need is less than 1 million tonnes of iron ore over a year. We understand there is an iron ore shortage currently but we have already looked at our supply chains and we have assurances around that. Iron ore won’t be a problem,” Mathur said.The entry into the DI segment is also a move to cater to the B2C segment, he said.At the end of September, the company had net cash balance of Rs 665 crore compared with debt of Rs 32 crore at the end of March FY 2020. The company will be using the funds for more growth expansion projects going ahead.Welspun Corp is also working towards divesting its non-core business, pipe and coil mill which will be completed by the end of March FY21. “We have a binding agreement in place with Laptev Finance and will be completed before March next year. The sale consideration is Rs 848.5 crore,” Mathur said, adding that by selling these divisions, the company is expected to move towards an asset-light model.