KARACHI, April 5: The ICI Pakistan announced on Thursday that it was going into expansion of its soda ash plant by another 65,000 tons per annum. The announcement made at the Karachi Stock Exchange stated that the expansion would be completed by Quarter II, 2009, and was likely to cost Rs1.36 billion.

“The funding for this project would be from internal cash generation,” the company said, and added that total nameplate capacity of the company’s soda ash plant after completion of the expansion would increase from 285,000 tons per annum to 350,000 tons per annum.

“This further investment in Soda Ash is fully in line with ICI Pakistan’s continued commitment towards the development of import substitution industries to cater to local demand,” the announcement at KSE stated.

In a press release issued by the company, ICI said that the expansion was to take place at the soda ash production facility in Khewra.

It said the latest expansion had come on the back of “the successful completion of 50,000 tons per annum expansion project of the soda ash plant, inaugurated by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on March 6, 2007.”