Tata Chemicals (TCL) owns and operates the largest and most integrated inorganic chemicals complex in the country at Mithapur, Gujarat. The company is among the largest producers of synthetic soda ash in the world and has the largest share of the domestic market.

TCL is also among the nation´s leading manufacturers of urea and phosphatic fertilisers. Its urea plant, located in Babrala, Uttar Pradesh, is the country´s most efficient fertiliser unit, and produces 12 per cent of the country´s urea output in the private sector. 

Tata Chemicals is a pioneer and market leader in the branded, iodised salt segment. Its salt has a purity percentage of 99.8 per cent, the highest in the country. 

TCL is now in the process of expanding its operations globally, and has set itself the objective of becoming the lowest-cost producer of soda ash in the world. 

Areas of business
Tata Chemicals is organised into three strategic business units: chemicals, food additives and fertilisers. 

Chemicals

Soda ash is the main product of the chemicals strategic business unit. The plant has an installed capacity of 875,000 tonnes of soda ash per year, nearly 34 per cent of the country´s capacity. The company also has salt works spread over 60 sq km at its plant in Mithapur, generating over two million tonnes of solar salt — the base raw material for almost all the 27 basic chemicals that the company produces. Caustic soda, bromine and bromine-based compounds and gypsum are the company´s other main chemicals. 

The facility at Mithapur also has a cement plant, which was set up to consume the solid waste generated from the manufacture of soda ash. TCL´s cement is sold in the state of Gujarat under the ´Shudh´ brand.

Fertilisers

With an installed capacity of 864,600 tonnes per year, the company´s fertiliser complex at Babrala has standards in technology, energy conservation, productivity and safety that are ranked among the best of its kind in India and comparable to the best in the world. It is the only fertiliser plant in the country to use dual feedstock: natural gas or naphtha, or a combination of both. The complex also houses an ammonia plant with a capacity of 1,350 tonnes per day. 

The company´s phosphatic fertiliser plant at Haldia, acquired from Hind Lever Chemicals, has production volumes exceeding 1.2 million tonnes per annum. The plant´s fertilisers, sold under the brand name ´Paras´, lead the market in the states of West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand.

Food additives

Tata Chemicals´ food additives strategic business unit has two of the company´s premium product groups under its wing: branded salt and sodium bicarbonate.

• Branded salt: The company manufactures four varieties of salt: iodised, crystalline, vacuum and pure salt which collectively have a 38-per cent market share of the Indian branded iodised salt market. Apart from Tata Salt, the country´s leading salt brand, TCL also produces Tata Samundar, crystal salt, and Topp Salt, iodised, vacuum evaporated salt (marketed in the Middle East markets).
  
• Sodium bicarbonate: The company produces three varieties of sodium bicarbonate — technical, refined and granular — at its 50,000-tonnes-per-year plant. These are marketed in India, the Middle East, Africa and Bangladesh. As part of its growth plans, Tata Chemicals has launched cooking soda in small, single-use sachets under the brand name ´Tata Samunder´.