Praj Industries - APIs, Fermentation, Biologics, and allied sectors with new Technologies and Tie-ups.

Praj Industries - APIs, Fermentation, Biologics, and allied sectors with new Technologies and Tie-ups.

Twitter Handle: @shuchi_nahar 

Company Overview

Praj Industries (Praj), India’s most accomplished industrial biotechnology Company with global footprints, is driven by innovation, integration, and delivery capabilities. Over the past three decades, Praj has focused on the environment, energy, and agri-process industry, with over 750 customer references spanning 75 countries across 5 continents. Praj’s diverse portfolio comprises of Bio-energy solutions, High purity water systems, Breweries, Critical process equipment & skids, and Zero liquid discharge systems.

Praj has pioneered the Bio-Mobility that envisages using renewable biological resources to produce carbon-neutral transportation fuels across all modes of mobility i.e. Surface, Air, and Marine. The bio-Mobility platform comprises Biofuels both in liquid, as well as gaseous form and, are derived by processing feedstock such as Agri residue, Molasses, Cane syrup, grains, oilseeds, etc.

Bioenergy the portfolio comprises of technology solutions for first-generation ethanol, advanced biofuel (second-generation ethanol), compressed biogas (CBG) and biodiesel systems. Biofuels are produced using three types of bio-based feedstock namely sugary (C molasses, B molasses, sugar syrup, etc.), starchy (damaged/ surplus grains, maze, etc.) and cellulosic (Agri residues and biomass).

Currently, the ethanol blending rate in the country is just 5%. The progressive National Biofuel Policy launched in 2018 has a stated objective of reaching 10% ethanol blending by 2022 and 20% by 2030. The policy envisages the production of ethanol from an expanded range of feedstock such as B heavy molasses, juice, syrup, and damaged grains.

The company partnered with Dedini S/A Indústrias de Base of Brazil to provide advanced technologies for ethanol production for South America, and with Sekab E-Technology AB, Sweden to commercialize technology to produce advanced biofuels and biochemicals from forest residue.

Order Book as of Q2 FY21: Rs 405 Cr.

Technologies and Tie-ups that bodes well for the company

1. Praj Industries and Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) entered into an MoU, to jointly address technologies to propagate the use of biofuels in a variety of applications including usage in ICE in the transportation sector.

2. Gevo and Praj will provide technology, plant equipment, and EPC services to customers to produce renewable Isobutanol that will be aggregated and transferred to various refineries. Both parties will also provide technology, plant equipment, and EPC services to refineries for converting renewable Isobutanol into SAF through the ASTM-approved pathway of Alcohol-to-Jet (ATJ).

3. Praj expanded its business horizons and launched BioPrismTM technology portfolio for producing bio-based Renewable Chemicals and Materials (RCM).

4. Praj has entered into an MOU with National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) for developing promising innovative technology solutions in the RCM space.

5. Praj has signed MoU with Lygos Inc, USA based biotech company, to co-develop Advanced Lactic Acid Yeast Technology for Bio-based Products.

Recent Key Developments

1. During the year,Company was granted 6 Indian patents and 41 foreign patents. The Company filed 131 international patents last year. In all, the Company has 74 patents granted to its name.

2. Praj bagged the Industrial Green Chemistry World (IGCW) Award for the environment-friendly furfural technology.

3. The enzymatic bio-diesel technology was expanded to use low-grade feedstocks like tallow and waste fatty acids. Praj bagged the first order for 50 TPD biodiesel plant from tallow in UP.

4. Praj developed lignosulphonate technology from the lignin generated from the 2G infinity plant. This can be bolted on the 2G plant to improve the overall viability of 2G ethanol plants.

5. Praj completed the DBT Biodiversity screening project in collaboration with D Y Patil University within timelines. 20,000 microbes were screened for 4 target molecules in 2 years.

CelluAPP® technology process

Ethanol availability & Requirement

1. Total Annual installed capacity of Ethanol and Alcohol in India is 693 Cr. Liters.

2. Total Annual Installed Capacity of Ethanol in India is 460 Cr. Liters( Grain Based – 75Cr. Liters, Molasses Based- 385 Cr. Liters.

3. In the next 5 years, the OMCs ethanol requirement will be approx. 2000-2400 Cr. Liters as per 10% Ethanol Blending at all India basis.

Praj HiPurity Systems (PHS)

Praj HiPurity Systems (PHS) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Praj Industries Limited. PHS offers water systems (WS), modular process systems (MPS) as well as the value added services (VAS) to customers in biopharma, sterile formulations, topical & orals, cosmetics & personal care, and nutraceutical industry.

PHS made importantly progress in the complex injectables, a niche low volume high-cost product segment, which is gaining traction across the globe. The partnership with Aquanova, of Sweden especially to cater  all important injectables and vaccine industry is paying dividends.

Several tops of the line, pharma majors have reposed faith in this value proposition by way of awarding contracts.

The drugs going off-patent in the coming 2-3 years have a very high proportion of Biologicals which include fermentation-based processes. PHS continues to focus on this opportunity by offering solutions for greener fermentation-based manufacturing processes.

Significant orders are being secured in this important business segment offered under the MPS vertical.

More surprise elements to come – Praj HiPurity Systems

With the emerging shifts and focus on localization, the domestic pharma industry intends to bring a larger focus on producing API’s (Bulk drugs) to reduce dependency on China.

To combat Covid-19, several projects are being set up for manufacturing COVID vaccines as well as disinfectant liquid significant opportunities will emerge out of these new investments.

Revenue Trend Over the past 5 Years 

Revenue Split for Recent Q2 FY21: Rs 260.24Cr.

Global fermentation champion Novozymes with Indian biotechnology major has an active collaboration with Praj in India for the past 10 years.

Strong Pipeline to cater to future demands

Bioenergy which is the core business of the company clearly see a significant effort from multiple stakeholders now to make the whole system and the environment and the opportunity crystallize in terms of the definition of feedstock. 

The demand from oil marketing companies have now been projected for 5 years through that and the prices have been rationalized. So, there is a clear move by the government to tell the sugar mills that over the next 3 years period they will start to reduce the quota for export and gradually bring it to zero over the next 3 years and all of that surplus should get diverted to ethanol production. Even on the other hand if you look at the 2G technology it will be of great benefit for the company.

On the CBG front, the company has developed an ecosystem that will be very positive for setting up the capacities. On the non-Bio-energy side of their business, as mentioned, the company sees clear traction coming out on the zero liquid discharge systems.

The PHS a business that is serving the very important pharma segment, already because of the uptick in the pharma segment itself plus the success and the durability of the solutions that the company has built over a period of time, is now leading us to a situation where customers are looking from a very different perspective on the PHS's ability to provide solutions. So, all in all, it’s expected the whole ecosystem to be very positively oriented to build on the order book performance. 

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Twitter Handle: @shuchi_nahar