International Conveyors Ltd is a business built on a founder’s frustration: waiting months for conveyor belts for his family’s coal mines in an era when a single supplier controlled the Indian market. Starting in 1977 with British technical know-how, the company spent its first two decades as a domestic supplier to Coal India before a deliberate push abroad turned it into the world’s largest exporter of PVC conveyor belting from India, shipping to every major mining jurisdiction on the planet. The recurring approach is to own the entire manufacturing process in-house, earn mine-safety approvals that take competitors years to replicate, and then lock in customers on multi-year contracts - a playbook that works the same way whether the end user is a potash miner in Saskatchewan or a coal operation in Australia.
Business segments
Three engines at different stages - a niche industrial consumable that dominates its global corner, a small trading business that rides on the same customer relationships, and a renewable-energy sideline that powers the plants.
1. PVC conveyor belting: the critical consumable no mine can run without
A belt that catches fire underground can kill people, so mining regulators in every major country demand fire-resistant, anti-static belting - and ICL holds the approvals to sell into more of those countries than almost anyone else.
- The product is a safety permit, not just a belt - PVC fire-retardant, anti-static (FRAS) solid-woven conveyor belting is a consumable with no known substitute for moving coal, potash, salt and other minerals continuously, and every importing country requires its own mine-safety certification before a belt can be used underground. ICL holds country-specific approvals from regulators in India, the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Spain, a dual-stage clearance process - first the country, then the individual mine operator - that creates a barrier few new entrants can clear.
- Exports are the main event - roughly 80% of revenue comes from outside India, with the US, Australia and Canada as the largest markets. The company is the leading supplier to Canada’s potash industry with majority market share, and is a preferred supplier to the world’s largest potash producers. By FY13 it already accounted for 80% of all PVC belting exported from India.
- Customers sign up for up to five years - contracts include price-variability clauses tied to raw-material indices that reset every six months, insulating both sides from commodity swings. Demand splits roughly evenly between replacement and new installations, with replacement cycles as short as one to two years in coal and four to five years in potash, creating a recurring revenue base.
- Everything is made under two roofs - the Aurangabad plant (700,000 metres annual capacity) and the Falta SEZ plant in West Bengal (425,000 metres) together can produce one million metres a year, with manufacturing integrated from yarn preparation and fabric weaving through to finishing and testing. The Falta location enjoys duty-free raw-material imports under SEZ rules and sits 50 kilometres from Kolkata port, while Aurangabad is roughly 350 kilometres from Mumbai port on the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor.
- The product range is the widest from any single manufacturer - belts span Type-3 to Type-18 (3,000 to 18,000 pounds-per-inch strength), in widths from 600 mm to 1,800 mm, tailored to individual country and customer specifications. A 93-person workforce with an average of more than 20 years on the job runs the operation, and an in-house design team uses Sidewinder software to help customers size belts to their conveyor structures.
2. Trading goods: the fastener business that came with the territory
A three-decade distribution arrangement for German-designed belt fasteners and lacing machines - a tiny add-on that makes the core belting offering more complete.
- Sole distributor for Mato in India - ICL sells Mato belt lacing machines, fasteners, spindle pins and belt cutters under an exclusive arrangement with Mato Industries (UK), a relationship that has run for over 30 years.
- Sells to the same mines and plants - the trading line is a natural complement to the belting business, giving customers a single source for the belt and fasteners.
3. Wind energy: the mills that power the plants
Five windmills across four states generate more electricity than the company consumes, turning a cost centre into a small green-revenue stream.
- Capacity exceeds own demand - the windmills in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh have a combined 10,900,000 KWH capacity and generated 6.19 million units in FY25, against the 4.44 million units the company used in its operations.
- Surplus sold to state grids - electricity is fed into the grids of the respective states, producing modest ancillary revenue while insulating the factories from power-cost volatility.
Group structure and partners
A lean holding structure with two overseas sales subsidiaries that put feet on the ground in the company’s biggest export markets.
- International Conveyors Ltd is the listed parent, with a direct subsidiary in the US (International Conveyors America Ltd., Inc.) and an Australian entity (International Conveyors Australia Pty Ltd) that became a direct subsidiary following a February 2026 acquisition, both acting as local sales and marketing arms.
- The Australian subsidiary was originally held through a Singapore intermediate, Conveyor Holdings Pte. Ltd., Singapore, but ICL bought it directly in February 2026 from its subsidiary Conveyor Holding Pvt. Ltd. and had begun winding up the Singapore entity, which had no operations of its own.
- The original technical collaborator was Scandura Plc of the UK’s BBA Group; that tie ended in 1997 when Scandura was acquired by Fenner International, the parent of the very competitor ICL was built to challenge.
- Promoter-group entities include R.C.A. Limited, Elpro International Limited and others, with total promoter holding at 68.65% after Elpro bought additional shares in March 2025.