Fire in US plant: It’s too early to quantify damage says Akhil Jindal of Welspun Group\n\nIn an interview witt ET Now, Akhil Jindal, Director, Welspun Group, speaks about the fire which erupted in the company’s US plant over the weekend and how will it affect its revenue and production. Excerpts:\n\nET Now: Can you confirm to us that there was a major fire at one of your plants in the US? Akhil Jindal: Yes, that is a fact that there was a small incidence of fire at our Little Rock facility over the weekend. It was at the early hours of Saturday morning and usually we are closed over the weekend for the production. So, no major collateral damage happened. The fire department was promptly informed and the fire could be brought into control within the next few hours. The damage is minimal to the extent of few electric control panels. All major equipment and buildings are largely unaffected. You must remember that the plant was fully insured to cover such unforeseen incidences.\n\nET Now: Could you quantify the damage because there are some reports which are indicating that the damage is worth $1.5 million? Akhil Jindal: Too early to say. We are actually in the process of evaluating the damage and the amount of time it would require to restart the plant. As I mentioned, there has been no collateral damage to any of the major equipment and machinery or the building. It is just that one of the electric panels, one of the control panels got fire. So in that sense yes, the plant is down and we are trying to restart it as soon as possible. I would like to confirm that there was no major disaster. In fact, this being the weekend, the production was not operational. So as a result, there has been no casualty, no injury, nothing.\n\nET Now: What could be a per day revenue loss if you fail to start the plant in the next two or three days? Akhil Jindal: There is some production planning which is likely to be done in the next few hours, where we would be trying to produce some of the production which could have otherwise been done from this plant from some of the global pipe capacities that we have. We would try to minimise the losses as much as possible. In fact, this plant is also insured against such exigencies. So, I would like to confirm that a major disaster could be averted and there has been no major problem.\n\nET Now: Just outline for us how much was the revenue from the US plant last year? Akhil Jindal: The total revenue was in the line of $400 million last year. In that sense then, the plant has always been busy and to that extent, we would have to shift some of the production to some of our other global capacities or other capacities outside Welspun also. So, without causing much harm or much damage to the customer or to anyone, we would like to maintain the scheduled production as much as possible.\n\nET Now: How soon do you hope to return normalcy to this particular plant wherein all the damages would be repaired? Akhil Jindal: All the major equipment suppliers who are involved in this plant are reaching on Tuesday to the Little Rock facility. Our initial assessment is that this can be restarted pretty soon. Maybe in around six weeks’ time, but obviously the exact timeline we would be able to determine once all the technical people are able to assess as well as to order the control panels and to erect them. By Tuesday, we would be more clear, but the damage is limited to the electric control panel and to that extent lots of problems could be avoided. There has been no damage to any of the plants and machineries otherwise. So just electric panels need to be replaced and we would be up and running.\n\nET Now: If I do a very basic ballpark calculation, you have clocked in revenues of about $400 million for the last year, which means if you shut your plant down for the next six weeks, you will have an operational loss of at least $15-20 million? Akhil Jindal: $15-20 million is the revenue number, you are calculating through that. All of our contracts have a little relaxed timeline. So if we are able to do production from other sources, all this can be minimised considerably. So the revenue loss and the profit loss will not be that much. I hope that we will be able to manage it extremely well with our global capacities and also some of the spare capacities that are there in the US. All this planning is currently going on.\n\nET Now: Is this your largest non-Indian manufacturing facility? Akhil Jindal: It is comparable to some of these. Saudi is 300,000 tonnes, and the US is also around 300,000 tonnes. So it is comparable to the US in that sense, but yes, the plant was under production and it had an outstanding order book to service, which is what we would try and manage in the next few hours.

Fire in US plant: It’s too early to quantify damage says Akhil Jindal of Welspun Group

Akhil Jindal, Director of Welspun Group, confirmed a minor fire at the company’s Little Rock, US plant over the weekend. The incident caused minimal damage to electric control panels, with no injuries or major equipment loss. The plant is insured, and efforts are underway to restart operations within weeks. Last year’s US plant revenue was $400 million, and the company is leveraging global production capacity to mitigate potential losses.