RHI Magnesita has urged the Government of India to implement strategic policy initiatives aimed at diversifying the sourcing of critical refractory-grade minerals, ensuring raw material supply security for the country’s sustainable growth. Gustavo Franco, the company’s Chief Customer Officer, emphasized this need during the India-Austria Business Meet, which took place recently as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Vienna. Additionally, the company has called for policy measures to limit environmentally harmful landfilling of used refractories and to promote recycling, thereby ensuring the availability of secondary raw materials for the industry and supporting the development of a circular economy.
Parmod Sagar, managing director and CEO of RHI Magnesita India said, “Refractory products and solutions are critical for production of steel, cement, glass, aluminium, energy and all such products that require high temperature manufacturing processes. India, purely for geological reasons, lacks domestic sources for critical raw materials like refractory grade Magnesite and Alumina. With very high import dependency, it is imperative to have a diversified sourcing network for supply security to ensure long term sustainability of the Make in India drive.”
India is already a pioneer in recycling in the refractories sector due to its low reserves of raw materials. However, there is still enormous potential, as thousands of tonnes of used but valuable refractory material is thrown into landfills. Landfilling is not only extremely damaging to the environment, but it also results in the enormous waste of precious raw materials. The company has asked for preventive policy measure on landfilling. This would protect the environment, level up the reuse of important raw materials and push recycling. The entire industry – including the steel industry in India would improve CO2 footprint while ensuring further raw-material security through circular economy solutions.Parmod reiterated that RHI Magnesita India is fully aligned with PM Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat vision and will continue playing a crucial role in India’s growth story. The company has committed approximately 400mEur (Rs 3600 crore) of phased investment by FY 2026 to build and modernize its production capacity in India. Out of this, it has spent about 300 mEur in last 2 years in India for building local capacity. It now has more than 500,000 tons of local refractory production capacity in India.
