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Case market in India has good potential as power & mining industries expand.

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Currently the Indian CASE (coatings, adhesives sealants and elastomers) market is growing well, but while most observers are quoting general growth rates of up to 12 percent a year in the polyurethane sector in India, these really apply to consumer markets and not to a performance business such as CASE, according to Mandar Lele, managing director of speciality systems and prepolymers producer Maitreya Polymers and Speciality Chemicals Pvt. Ltd, part of a family-owned group of companies.

"I think there is also a lot of potentia] in CASE markets for higher growth," he said, but went on to emphasise an important issue: the availability of raw materials.

"With India having only one TDI (toluene diisocyanate) producer, no MDI (methylene diphenyl diisocyanate) producer and no-one making the speciality isocyanates used most in coatings such as HDI (hexamethylene diisocyanate) and IPDI (isophorone diisocyanate)," getting supplies has been complex, he indicated.

No-one produces those [speciality isocyanates] in India and sometimes "you find difficulties in sourcing from the multinationals." They have been reluctant to supply the small development volumes needed early on in a project, Mandar Lele said.

"How do you grow ... with this "chicken and egg situation?" the Maitreya boss asked. He sees the situation changing now, since for the last 3-4 years, India has been such a focus for the majors. This means there is better awareness and support generally.

"When we started making cast polyurethane parts in 1986 to 87 the market was quite small --estimated at 50 tonnes per annum (tpa)," said Mandar Lele, in an interview during the PUTECH 208 meeting, held by the Indian Polyurethane Association in Delhi, 11-14 March.

Now the cast elastomer market in India could be at 800-1000 tpa, including imports, he said, with India itself making 600-700 tpa, he added. "It is "not a huge market ... it is quite a niche, but growing," he stressed.

Mandar's father, Govind Lele, managing director of another part of the Speciality Group, PU elastomer part maker Speciality Urethanes Pvt Ltd, said he is rather sceptical about some of...

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