Vibhor Steel Tubes Limited, leading manufacturer of high-quality steel tubes and pipes, is planning to strengthen its presence in the infrastructure sector and electricity transmission market with the launch of its new facility in Odisha. The new project will enhance their annual capacity from existing 2,24,000 MT to 3,41,000 MT. This was revealed by its Chairman, Mr. Vijay Kaushik, during an exclusive interaction with Tube & Pipe India.
Tube & Pipe India: Kindly walk us through your business journey, highlighting major milestones and crucial achievements.
Vijay Kaushik: Vibhor Steel Tubes Limited is a leading manufacturer of high-quality steel tubes and pipes, which started its operations in Mumbai in 2003 with a pipe mill of 2 inches diameter and a Galvanized Iron (GI) plant. Our first client, which has remained with us till date, is Jindal Pipes Limited (JPL), a flagship company of DP Jindal Group. We worked as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for JPL. In 2004, we increased our capacity to 25,000 MTPA by installing another mill. A new unit was set up for the production of 8 inch diameter pipes in 2008, along with a new galvanized line. In 2011, we increased our capacity to 90,000 MTPA with the help of an advanced tube mill imported from Australia and a state-of-the-art slitting line from the USA.
Vibhor Steel Tubes took its business to another level in 2017 by establishing a factory in Telangana with a capacity of 96,000 MTPA. In 2023, we added two new products to our kitty – square pipe and crash barriers. We will be setting up our third plant at Jharsuguda in Odisha soon for the production of 14-inch pipes, crash barriers, hexagon poles, monopoles and mass poles. We plan to enter the infrastructure sector with this new facility. Once operational, the new project will enhance our annual capacity to 3,41,000 MT.
TPI: Kindly tell us more about your manufacturing facilities and capacities. Please share information about your market footprint.
VK: Vibhor Steel Tubes currently operates two plants in Mahabubnagar (Telangana) and Raigad (Maharashtra) with a combined annual installed capacity of 2.24 lakh tonnes. We recently inaugurated a new galvanizing iron (GI) manufacturing unit in our Telangana plant to increase the production of crash barriers, a crucial component used in medians, shoulders, verges, and high embankments. This state-of-the-art facility not only ensured the availability of high-quality crash barriers across the country, but strengthened our position in the market as well.
We are setting up our third plant in Jharsuguda, Odisha. Vibhor Steel Tubes has already acquired the land and aims to commission the unit soon. Since the place has ready availability of raw material, we will diversify our product range to include hexagon poles, monopoles and mass poles. We manufacture 10,000 tonnes per month in our Maharashtra facility and export nearly 10 percent of it to Australia, Canada and Egypt. Since the plant is near the port, the facilities for both export and import are easily available. We can easily import raw material and export finished goods through the sea route.
TPI: Kindly walk us through your product line. Will you be launching your own brand in future?
VK: We have a diversified product range, which includes GI and black pipes, ERW black pipes, hot dipped galvanized pipes, hollow sections tubes, primer painted and crash barriers. We manufacture a wide range of round, square, rectangular, elliptical and custom-shaped steel pipes and tubes. Our round pipes come in sizes of 0.5 inch to 14 inches. We recently entered the section pipe segment. Our hollow section pipes range from 1/2 inch to 8 inches. We also manufacture galvanized angles and channels, which are used as structures in transmission lines. Our structural pipes also find application in prefabricated pipes segment. Our crash barriers and galvanized angles & channels are our own products and sold in the markets as such. There is no branding on hexagons and poles also.
TPI: What is your USP that helps you stay ahead of the curve?
VK: Quality is our uncompromisable trait and we are proud of our workforce that has inculcated it in every aspect of work at the company. Our aim is to make our organization a harbinger of change, ushering in economic growth and development, while maintaining long-term sustainability.
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TPI: What is your plan for the future?
VK: We are going very aggressive in the infrastructure sector because it will remain an important sector in India. We are into manufacturing of crash barriers, poles, structures, all of which have application in the infrastructure sector. Besides, we are eyeing the transmission line segment. Setting up a power plant in North India is costly due to low availability of coal. The transportation of coal will incur a huge cost, so the electricity generated will also be expensive. Power plants are usually set up at places having good availability of coal. There comes another issue. Coal is available, but cannot be transported. For that, we need transmission lines. If electricity is generated at the coal site only, then it can be easily transmitted through transmission lines. In the future, the demand for transmission lines will increase in the country. We are planning to enter this sector as well.
