- **Himadri Speciality Chemical Ltd is a materials-science company that turns a single feedstock - coal tar - into an expanding cascade of higher-value products, from the pitch that makes aluminium smelting possible to the conductive carbons inside lithium-ion batteries. Commencing operations in 1990 in Kolkata as a single-product coal tar pitch manufacturer, it has spent three decades climbing the value chain through in-house R&D, moving from commodity carbon black into complex speciality grades and, since 2022, into battery materials. The recurring pattern is “lab-first, plant-later”: invest years in research to master a difficult molecule, then build integrated capacity that competitors find hard to replicate.** # Business segments Four engines at different stages - a coal-tar backbone that funds everything else, a speciality carbon platform that turned a commodity into a brand, a tyre business bought for cents on the rupee, and a battery-materials bet now entering commercial production - each built with the cash flows of the one before. ## 1. Coal tar pitch and distillation products: the chemical backbone that feeds every other business **The company distils coal tar into pitch and a family of intermediates, then sells those intermediates to aluminium smelters and chemical buyers - or feeds them into its own downstream plants, capturing margin at every step.** - **The largest single-location integrated coal-chemical complex in the world** - Himadri operates eight distillation plants adjacent to steel manufacturers, with 600,000 tonnes per annum of coal tar distillation capacity, all running on zero-liquid-discharge systems. - **A product aluminium cannot function without** - coal tar pitch is the binding and conductive material inside every aluminium smelter’s anode; without it, smelters stop, and Himadri has led the Indian market for more than three decades without ever losing a customer. - **Roughly two-thirds of the domestic market** - the company held approximately 65% domestic market share in FY 2025-26, even though most buyers cap suppliers at 50%, a cap they relaxed for Himadri because of its quality and reliability. - **Delivered molten at 250°C** - a dedicated fleet of 292 custom-built high-temperature tankers delivers liquid pitch directly into customers’ smelters, and two new export terminals at Haldia and Mangalore ports now open a west-coast export route, with the first 3,600-tonne liquid shipment dispatched in November 2025. - **A molecule squeezed for everything it is worth** - beyond pitch, the distillation platform yields naphthalene (where Himadri holds roughly 67% market share), carbon black oil, SNF and PCE concrete admixtures, anthraquinone for dyes and paper, and carbazole for cancer drugs and electronic polymers; a new anthraquinone and carbazole plant is due in Q2 FY27. ## 2. Carbon black: from commodity filler to a speciality supermarket **What was once a bulk input for tyres is now a portfolio of more than 70 engineered grades, each tuned for a specific application - conductivity, colour, reinforcement - and sold on performance, not weight.** - **The world’s largest single-location speciality carbon black plant** - total capacity reached 250,000 tonnes per annum in March 2026, of which 130,000 tonnes is speciality black, making Himadri the fourth-largest speciality black producer globally. - **Integrated from raw material to finished powder** - because the company makes its own carbon black oil from coal tar distillation, it controls raw-material quality, cost and carbon footprint in a way that standalone carbon black producers cannot. - **Seven branded series, each with a job** - ENERGEX for battery conductivity, ONYX for tyre reinforcement, JETEX for cable shielding, KLAREX for plastics clarity, ELECTRA for EV components, COLORX for deep-black pigments, and BARONX for engineered rubber. - **A nano-rebar for concrete** - MaxCrete, a nano-engineered additive, bridges micro-cracks inside concrete, cuts cement use by 10-15%, and can impart electrical conductivity for self-sensing structures. - **Carbon nanotubes in the pipeline** - a technology breakthrough in FY 2025-26 has led to plans for a 200-tonne-per-annum commercial CNT plant, which would be one of only six such plants worldwide. ## 3. Tyres: a B2C leap bought at a deep discount **Birla Tyres gives Himadri a direct route to consumers and a captive customer for its speciality carbon blacks, acquired through insolvency at roughly 10% of the cost of building from scratch.** - **Bought, not built** - the manufacturing assets in Balasore, Odisha, were acquired for approximately Rs. 340 crores, against an estimated replacement value of Rs. 3,400 crores, so the plant breaks even at just 30% capacity utilisation. - **Backward-integrated compounding** - unlike most tyre makers that buy speciality carbon black from third parties, Birla Tyres draws on Himadri’s in-house material R&D and carbon black production to control its own compounding chemistry. - **A speciality tyre portfolio, not a commodity one** - the focus is on off-highway tyres for mining and construction, agricultural tyres for tractors, and EV-ready passenger car radials, with brands like KalaPatthar for extreme mining and AgriPlus for tractors. - **Distribution stitched up in-house** - a proprietary network of 43 distributors and over 1,000 dealers, with exports already flowing to seven countries and a roadmap to reach 25 within two years. - **Commercial production began in May 2025** - processes were stabilised within six months, 75 SKUs were live in FY 2025-26, and the target is roughly 400 SKUs in FY 2026-27. ## 4. New energy materials: the battery bet built on a decade of in-house R&D **Himadri is now manufacturing the anode and cathode materials that make up roughly 65% of a lithium-ion cell’s cost, using technology developed entirely in its own labs.** - **Over ten years of research before a single commercial tonne** - the company commissioned its first 200-tonne-per-annum anode material plant in April 2026, with the entire process - from raw material to finished anode active material - developed in-house without external licences. - **The pitch advantage, again** - the anode plant runs on a specially engineered high-purity coal tar pitch produced in-house, giving Himadri a fully integrated raw-material chain that few battery-material startups can match. - **LFP cathode at a scale nobody outside China has attempted** - a phased 40,000-tonne-per-annum LFP cathode plant is under construction, with the first 2,000 tonnes targeted by Q3 FY27 and a long-term vision of 200,000 tonnes, making Himadri the first company globally to build commercial-scale LFP cathode capacity outside China. - **A live testing ground through strategic stakes** - Himadri holds roughly 20% of International Battery Company, a prismatic-cell manufacturer with a 50 MWh plant in South Korea and a Gigafactory under development in Bengaluru, which is already testing Himadri’s anode and LFP samples in real cells. # Group structure and partners **Himadri sits at the centre of a web of wholly owned subsidiaries and strategic minority stakes, each placed to secure raw materials, technology or market access for the core materials business.** - **Clean-energy subsidiaries carry the battery ambition** - Himadri Clean Energy Limited and its step-down subsidiaries Himadri Future Material Technology and Himadri Green Technologies Innovation were created to house the cathode and anode projects. - **Birla Tyres is now 100% owned** - the company converted its debt into equity in April 2025 and bought out its consortium partner’s residual 0.33% stake, taking full control of the tyre subsidiary. - **A minerals subsidiary for upstream security** - Himadri Power Limited was acquired in February 2026 to pursue mining, processing and refining of minerals, while Trancemarine and its subsidiary Sturdy Niketan operate in critical and industrial minerals. - **International reach through Hong Kong, China and the US** - AAT Global Limited (Hong Kong) and its 94%-owned Chinese subsidiary Shandong Dawn Himadri give the company a manufacturing and trading presence in China, while Himadri Speciality Inc was incorporated in Delaware in 2025 to trade carbon black in the US market. - **Two strategic bets on next-generation cells** - the Rs. 138-crore investment in Sicona secures silicon-anode technology, and the USD 6.09-million stake in International Battery Company provides a direct line to cell manufacturing and customer validation.