Refex bags HFC order from Hyundai

Refex Refrigerants has received a mandate from Hyundai Motor India to supply HFC (hydrofluorocarbon) gas for the cars to be manufactured at its second plant. The Chennai-based Refex is a joint venture between Bombay Metals and Kaltech Refrigeration & Engineering of Singapore that markets world- class refrigerant products in India. Bombay Metals is, incidentally, one of Chennai’s leading players in ferrous and non-ferrous metals.

As part of the Hyundai order, it is setting up an automated gas dispensing facility with two storage tanks of 20 kilolitres each at the carmaker’s new facility. These will have the capacity to fill up 40,000 cars. While the tanks will be fabricated at one of Refex’s group companies in Mumbai, other aggregates will be made at the Thiruporur plant near Chennai. The Rs 60-lakh unit will be operational by September, said managing director of Refex, Anil Jain. For the record, Hyundai Motor India's second plant involves an investment of $500 million and will see capacity up to 600,000 units.

Refex will install an automated gas dispensing system, which will take the gas from the storage tank to the assembly line in a secured pipeline. The automated unit at the assembly line dispenses the gas at a predetermined quantity depending upon the car. In the conventional method, vehicle manufacturers source replaceable gas cylinders of different capacities and move them to the assembly line for dispensing it to the vehicles.

Once empty, these are replaced by a new cylinder. In the process, there is loss due to transit as well as movement of cylinders on the shopfloor. In the automated line, leakage is nullified to a great extent and there is less human intervention. Jain said that fewer workers were needed to get this process done. Apart from this, there is no wastage of gas when cylinders are replaced.

Further, safety is ensured since the gas line from the storage tank to the dispensing point is laid overhead. Eventually, savings in operational cost will be significant. Refex imports HFC from gas manufacturers in Italy and Singapore and repacks them in containers of 10, 25 and 62kg cylinders. In addition, it has 900kg tankers.

High-volume car companies take 900kg tankers while this is 62kg in the case of low-volume players. Refex meets the needs of Reva cars, Tatra and Visteon in the automotive segment as well as Bluestar, Godrej and Voltas in the other categories.The company recently supplied samples to Subros, the auto airconditioning maker. The Chennai plant has the capacity to repack 480 tonnes of gas annually. When fully operational, Hyundai’s second plant will account for nearly 300 tonnes annually.

Refex is planning to enhance capacity of the plant to 3,000 tonnes per year. Towards this, it has recently acquired about 10 acres near the existing facility. The company has earmarked Rs 33 crore and construction will begin this month. It will be setting up a greenfield facility in north India and is looking at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh as well as Jammu. The investment will be Rs 13 crore and the plant will have a capacity of 1,200 tonnes a year. By 2008, Refex will be looking at manufacturing gas in India. Towards this project, it has already initiated the process of looking for technology tie-ups.