Inox Air aims to expand green hydrogen business – Industry News

Inox Air products, which manufactures industrial and medical gases, has now forayed into the green hydrogen segment and aims to expand business in the area while targeting to become a major green fuel supplier to the world.

The company will be completing its capex target of Rs 3,000 crore in the current financial year (FY25) and will be investing Rs 1,000 crore on an average every year, managing director and promoter Siddharth Jain said. Moreover, Jain hopes to continue the growth target of 16% for the company, going forward.

“Our next phase of capex is going to begin, we are in the budgeting phase right now. But on an average, we do invest anywhere around Rs 500-1,000 crore every year, depending on the market demand,” Jain said, adding that the company is in the midst of executing the announced Rs 3,000 crore capex two years ago.

The company has recently signed a 20-year long green hydrogen supply contract with Japanese multinational corporation Asahi India Glass and intends to commission the project in three months.

“This is our first small investment in India, but it is extremely critical and will be one of the flagship projects in the world,” Jain said. “For us, Asahi is going to be almost like a test case, a user case wherein other industries will get inspired to do the same after looking at that.”

Regarding its another project in the field of green ammonia, the company has signed a $3-billion project with the Maharashtra government with plans to commission it in the next 4-5 years. The project, once commissioned, will export green ammonia to Europe, Japan and Korea.

“We’ve just started our initial feed study on the same and are in the process of doing the engineering, finalising the land and sourcing the electricity and all that. It is going to be a 100% export-oriented green ammonia project meant for nations like Europe, Japan and Korea.”

The company, whose existing customer base extends to TATA Steel, Jupiter and First Solar among others, is now in talks with leading renewable companies in India to evaluate and extend its green hydrogen supply business.

Inox AP, 50% owned by US-based Air Products, is also planning to diversify into electronic gases for the solar and semiconductor industry.

“India is setting up 10 solar fabs of its own, and as these solar fabs are set up, it will have a large demand for electronic gases, which is what we manufacture and supply. Similarly, the semiconductor industry with companies like Micron and Foxconn doing the mobile phones, or Tata coming up with the new semiconductor fab in Dholera and Assam; all of them require a massive amount of specialty electronic gasses as well. We have developed the entire infrastructure and supply chain in order to deliver that to the customers,” the MD said.

The company expects offtake of electronic gases in the solar industry to begin this financial year.

Addressing a query on plans to list the company, Jain said there are no such plans as of now. “I suppose we don’t have any large capex needs. All our capex is internally funded. If we reach a stage where extremely large investments are required, we will certainly come to the capital markets,” he said.