The public sector had some time back approached the department of anti-dumping for the imposition of the anti-dumping obligation in the wake of reported dumping of phenol by the US and Chinese multinationals in the domestic market.

There is already an oversupply of essential raw materials used in the manufacture of chemicals like phenol. Besides, the availability of lower rate of power as well as fiscal incentives for the US and the Chinese multinationals have given an unbridled price advantage against the producers of the product in the country.

With the chlorine prices are ruling low in the international markets, the production of intermediates chemicals have also softened drastically. This has led to a an oversupply situation around the world, sources said.

HOChas in fact recently embarked on the process of enhancing its presence in the domestic as well as overseas market by increasing the capacity utilisation at its phenol manufacturing plant.

The Kochi plant has already been unpgraded with a installation of air compressor units which will further add to the output of the unit, according to sources.

It has already acquired the ISO 9002 certification and is in the process of procuring the environmental management accreditation of ISO 14001 by the international agency.

In the process it has already stepped up its efforts in research & development and has decided to allocate as much as 30 per cent of its annual budget for R&D purposes. This is expected to help the organisation to capture a bigger share in the global market.

As a part of its fresh corporate strategy to take on the global market, a new focus on research and development has been accorded by the board particularly to provide inhouse support to operations and development of new products. Therenewed thrust would also be on technology absorption, cost reduction in various plants, improvement of yield and quality of end products, reduction of waste as well as responding to the dynamics of both the domestic and international markets.

The undertaking had, last year, carried out significant inhouse R&D with the company's Rasyani plant where regeneration and utilisation of absorbents in the hydrogen plant which resulted in a saving of about Rs 55 lakh. The re-use of oil contaminated catalyst of chlorohexylamine plant also saved an additional Rs 5 lakh.

Apart from this, the company has also succeeded in saving as much as Rs 8 lakh in capital cost and recurring direct savings through optimising steam consumption. Recovery of paranitrotoluene from nitrotoluene plant backends has also been carried out by the undertaking, which alone has a revenue generation potential of Rs 30 lakh per annum on an average, according to the company.