Rain Industries Limited (RIL), erstwhile Rain Commodities Limited, is engaged in the business of manufacture and sale of Carbon Products, Chemicals and Cement. Carbon Products include Calcined Petrole
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um Coke (CPC), Coal Tar Pitch (CTP), Green Petroleum Coke (GPC), energy produced through Waste-Heat Recovery (WHR) and other derivatives of coal tar distillation including creosote oil, naphthalene, phthalic anhydride and others. Chemicals include resins, modifiers, superplasticizers, aromatic chemicals, and others.
The company sells cement under the brand 'Priya Cement', one of the leading cement brands in South India. It has two integrated cement plants, one each in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, with an aggregate installed capacity of 4 million tonnes per annum. The plants in South India produce two grades of cement: ordinary portland cement (OPC) and portland pozzolana cement (PPC). Apart from this, it also has 16 manufacturing facilities located close to raw material suppliers and markets across seven countries in three continents.
Rain Commodities Limited (RCL) was incorporated on 15th March 1974 under the name and style of Tadpatri Cements Limited. The name of the company was changed to Priyadarshini Cement Limited on 4th May of the year 1984. After two years, in 1986 RCL made its Initial Public Offering (IPO). The Company came under the provision of the Sick Industrial Companies (Sp. Provisions) during the year 1990 and in April of the year 1992, Board for Industrial and Finance Reconstruction (BIFR) had accepted the sick industrial companies (Sp.Provisions) scheme, also passed an order. RCL commissioned its first ready mix concrete plant in December of the year 1999 at Hyderabad. The second ready mix concrete plant of the company had set up at Miyapur, also in Hyderabad. It had set up two manufacturing plants with a rated capacity of 7200 cubic meters per month.
During the year 2000, RCL had proposed to acquire Hemadri Cements, nearly year after taking over a cement unit from Nagarjuna Construction Company. The Company got its present name as Rain Commodities Limited on 27th December of the year 2004. The cement business, housed in RIL, was transferred to the company with effect from July of the year 2006. The Company's wholly owned subsidiary Rain Commodities (USA), Inc., (RCUSA) acquired 100% of the membership interests of AIP/GLC Holdings, LLC in October 2006 from American Industrial Capital Partners II, L.P. Rain Commodities (USA), a wholly owned subsidiary of the company had entered into an agreement with Great Lakes Carbon Income Fund, Toronto, Canada during February of the year 2007 to acquire majority stake and certain assets. The Company had acquired CII Carbon of USA In July of the same year 2007, manufacturing 1.9Million TPA of CPC with manufacturing facilities in Illinois, Louisiana, Missisipi and West Virginia. Rain Calcining got amalgamated with RCL in November of the year 2007.
RCL had launched a feasibility study to construct, own and operate a petroleum coke calcining plant in China through its wholly owned subsidiary Rain CII Carbon LLC, USA (Rain CII) in February of the year 2008. The Company had incorporated Rain Calciner, India and Rain Global Services, USA, as it's wholly owned subsidiaries in April of the year 2008. RCL's second unit situated in Kurnool had started its commercial production with expanded capacity of 1.5 million metric tones of cement per annum with effect from 19th June 2008.
The company's name was changed to Rain Industries Limited from Rain Commodities Limited, pursuant to the approval received from the Registrar of Companies, Hyderabad on July 8, 2013.
In FY'15, the Company commissioned an FGD system at the Chalmette (Louisiana) CPC facility, US, which enables the plant to meet emission requirements without impacting production efficiency.
Rain Industries made an application with the Hon'ble High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh for approval of the Scheme of Arrangement between the Company, Rain Cements Limited (Wholly Owned Subsidiary Company) and Moonglow Business Inc., (Step down Wholly Owned Subsidiary Company) and their respective Shareholders and Creditors under Section 391 to 394 of the Companies Act, 1956. The Hon'ble High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh vide its order dated 12 November 2015, directed the company to convene Meeting of the Shareholders of the Company on 19 January 2016 for obtaining approval for the Scheme of Arrangement between the Company, Rain Cements Limited, Moonglow Company Business Inc., and their respective shareholders and creditors.
Rain Industries successfully completed the construction of its fourth Coal Tar Distillation (CTP) plant with a capacity of 300,000 metric tons per annum in Cherepovets, Russia on 11 February 2016 via a Joint Venture with PAO Severstal, Russia. The CTP plant is expected to operate at about 70% of its capacity in the first year of its operation. The advanced technologies installed in this CTP Plant will enable production of vacuum-distilled CTP, which is of a higher quality vacuum in a higher margin product. The Joint Venture Partner, PAO Severstal, has brought a long-term supply contract for the raw material - Coal Tar into this Joint Venture.
In 2016, RAIN Group established a CPC blending center, with a blending capacity of 1 million metric ton per year of CPC at plant set up in Vishakapatnam, India.
During 2017, RAIN Group produced specialty carbon materials equivalent to the needs for 100,000 electric vehicles. It began site preparation and construction of a vertical-shaft calcination plant to add CPC capacity of 0.37 MTPA with a 15 MW WHR power plant in a Special Economic Zone in Visakhapatnam, India to enable the production of high-density CPC and improve input-output conversion.
In October 2018, the Company received the Hon'ble Supreme Court's permission to resume shipments of GPC to its resume shipments of GPC to its Visakhapatnam facility. RCI completed the transition to ISO 9001:2015, following successful audits at its calcining and office locations in Illinois and Louisiana during the year 2018. It completed debottlenecking of petro tar distillation facilities in FY'18.
During 2018, improvement in coal tar supply from Eastern Europe was observed, with Russia and Turkey being the major coal tar exporters to European distillers.
During CY 2019, RAIN Group announced to produce anhydrous carbon pellets (ACP), a proprietary product developed through research and development, to mitigate the risk of reduced anode-grade GPC supply. ACP would be produced by using carbon fines and other non-anode grade GPC, which are available to meet the ever-increasing demand for anode-grade GPC from calciners.
In 2019, RAIN Group realigned the product portfolio and formed a new business segment, Advanced Materials as part of increasing focus on transforming the by-products of coal tar and petrochemical feedstock distillation activities to produce raw materials that support high-growth products of the future.
In 2020, it commissioned new HHCR facility in Germany, which will serve as the cornerstone of Advanced Materials segment and produce 'water-white' resins for adhesives and hygiene-product applications where contaminant-free materials are growing. Similarly, it continue to build on PETRORESr brand of specialty coatings for electric vehicle and lithium-ion battery markets with introduction of LIONCOAT product, and proprietary NOVARESr resins are playing an important role in improved fuel economy and driving safety when used in tyre applications.
In 2020, a new stormwater-treatment unit was commissioned to collect and treat all site stormwater. By adding a reverse-osmosis unit behind the stormwater treatment, the site will recycle significant volumes of water and reduce the use of potable water. The unit will be commissioned in 2022.
On December 31, 2020, the Group completed the sale of its Wholly Owned Subsidiaries engaged in the manufacturing and distribution of Polynaphthalene Sulfonates, RUTGERS Polymers Limited and Handy Chemicals (U.S.A.) Limited, for an aggregate cash consideration of Rs.386.27.
In FY 2021, the Company commissioned the vertical-shaft calciner plant in Atchutapuram, India and completed first sale of CPC. This
new plant utilizes vertical-shaft kiln technology, which allows for a higher percentage of green petroleum coke raw material to be converted into CPC. It commissioned the anhydrous carbon pellet (ACP) production facility in the United States. It recovered quickly at the Chalmette, Gramercy, Norco and Purvis calcination and energy facilities in the US following Hurricane Ida in September. It initiated production of PETRORESr specialty coating at K dzierzyn-Ko le plant in Poland.
In 2021, it opened a state-of-the-art rubber lab in Duisburg, Germany with an investment of US $1.3 Million. It commissioned a ground-mounted, 1 MW solar plant in Suryapet. It installed a rooftop solar plant with a capacity 25.9 KWh in Suryapet and another with a 60 KWh capacity in Kurnool. Besides this, it planted 12,373 saplings over 6.47 acres at the Suryapet plant and 71,177 saplings (including 19,600 plants grown using Miyawaki method) over 52.64 acres at the Kurnool plant.
In 2021, Company completed projects of expanding the production capacity for PETRORES and LIONCOAT carbon precursors for the rechargeable lithium battery market. In 2021, it installed an improved fresh-lime injection system at Norco site to improve the SO2-scrubbing efficiency. Additionally, the Company installed a redundant, standby fresh-lime feeder, ensuring continuous operation of Norco's scrubbing system.
In 2022, the Company introduced NOVARES TM 85 AS and TM 100 AS for use in tyres, coatings, and adhesive applications; launched formulations of NOVARES Pure Series of hydrogenated hydrocarbon resins and switched to petro-based indene fractions to produce NOVARES C Resins.
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