HEG Limited is the world’s largest single-site maker of graphite electrodes - the giant consumable rods that melt scrap steel in electric arc furnaces - and it got there from a standing start in 1976, decades after every other global player had already built their plants. No new competitor has entered the industry outside China since HEG’s own factory opened, and the company has spent five decades turning that protected position into a structural cost advantage that no Western rival can easily replicate. That same patient, cash-flow-funded approach is now being applied to a second act: a clean-tech platform being carved out into a separate listed company, built with the same logic of owning the lowest-cost manufacturing base and waiting for demand to come to it.
Business segments
Two engines at different stages - a global graphite-electrode cash generator with five decades of accumulated process know-how, and a clean-tech platform under construction that combines battery materials, hydropower and energy storage into a single listed entity - each built with the cash flows of the one before.
1. Graphite electrodes: the world’s largest single-site factory making the consumable that powers electric-arc steelmaking
A 100,000-tonne plant in central India, running at over 90% utilisation while the global industry averages 60-65%, exports to 35 countries and sits in the lowest cost quartile worldwide - no Western competitor has announced new capacity.
- The product is a high-temperature consumable, not a machine part - graphite electrodes conduct electricity into electric arc furnaces, where their tips reach 3,000 degrees Celsius to melt scrap steel; graphite is the only commercially available material that can survive those conditions, and every tonne of EAF steel consumes roughly 1.5 to 2 kilograms of electrodes, making them a recurring purchase for steelmakers.
- One site, 100,000 tonnes, lowest quartile costs - the Mandideep plant in Madhya Pradesh is the largest single-site graphite electrode facility on earth, backed by about 77 MW of captive power, and its scale combined with Indian manpower and power costs puts HEG in the lowest cost quartile globally.
- Capacity took fifty years to build; rivals cannot easily follow - HEG expanded in steps from 10,000 tonnes at inception to 100,000 tonnes in 2024, with a further brownfield expansion to 115,000 tonnes under construction at ₹650 Crores for completion by early 2028; a greenfield plant would take four to five years and cost more than twice as much per tonne, and most Western capacity is over fifty years old with shuttered plants prohibitively expensive to restart.
- Exports to the world’s top steelmakers, with the US as a cornerstone - roughly 65-70% of production goes to about 35 countries, the customer list includes the Top 25 steel producers outside China, and the US alone represents 12-15% of exports with volumes that doubled in a single year.
- A needle-coke hedge built through a competitor’s stock - the key raw material is needle coke, and HEG’s 9.98% stake in GrafTech International (a rival that is 75-80% backward integrated into its own needle coke, with 140,000 tonnes of capacity) gives it an indirect hedge because GrafTech can freeze its raw-material costs for three to six years by buying crude-oil futures, a tool unavailable to other graphite companies.
2. HEG Greentech: a clean-tech platform being carved out into a separate listed company
An integrated bet on the electrification supply chain - synthetic graphite for battery anodes, run-of-river hydropower that throws off steady cash, and a battery-storage solutions business already executing over 2,000 MWh of orders globally - all housed in a single entity designed to fund its own growth.
- Anode materials: a 20,000-tonne plant built on the graphite DNA - TACC Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary, is constructing a synthetic-graphite anode facility near Indore on 100 acres, with engineering 90% complete and commissioning targeted by March 2027; a 200-tonne pilot plant has already sent material to over 20 global cell manufacturers, and the site is designed to expand to 60,000 tonnes by FY32.
- Graphene as the second act inside the anode factory - TACC has filed patents on an in-house graphene process and is scaling towards a 4,000-plus metric tonne derivatives facility on the same premises, with applications spanning cement, textiles, paints and anodes, and has signed development agreements with Birla Cellulose and a Singapore university research institute.
- Hydropower: two debt-free plants generating over ₹300 crore of steady cash annually - held through Bhilwara Energy Limited, the Malana (about 100 MW) and AD Hydro (200 MW) run-of-river projects in Himachal Pradesh have been operating for 25 and 15 years respectively, deliver roughly 80% EBITDA margins, and have 3.5 to 4 hours of reservoir capacity that lets them sell power at peak prices.
- Battery storage: a 1 GWh pack line expanding to 6 GWh, plus an IPP building its own project pipeline - REPlus, 74%-owned through BEL, runs a highly automated cell-to-pack line in Pune, has commissioned over 100 MWh in India with marquee projects in Saudi Arabia and the DRC, and is India’s first battery solution provider with European TSEC certification; the IPP arm has already secured a 200 MWh BESS order in Gujarat and is targeting a 5.9 GWh storage portfolio over five years, funded by selling stabilised projects to infrastructure trusts.
Group structure and partners
A demerger is underway to split the fifty-year-old graphite electrode business from the new clean-tech platform, while a strategic stake in a US competitor doubles as a raw-material hedge.
- The GrafTech stake is a structural hedge, not a trading position - HEG invested ₹283 crore for a 9.98% stake in NYSE-listed GrafTech International, a competitor that produces its own needle coke; management has reaffirmed the investment is anchored in industry fundamentals, because GrafTech’s backward integration lets it lock raw-material costs in ways that insulate HEG’s supply chain indirectly.