Building materials: Follow one offering through the chain
Cement, concrete, bricks, tiles, glass and gypsum board made from quarried minerals
Follow one offering through the chain
A 50 kg bag of cement
Follow limestone from a quarry through a kiln and a grinding mill to a dealer's stack of bags.
Limestone blasted from a captive quarry
450 Mtlimestone mined in India, 2023-24A bag of cement starts mostly as limestone, blasted and crushed in quarries that cement companies usually hold on long mining leases beside their kilns. India mined a record 450 million tonnes of limestone in 2023-24, according to the Ministry of Mines, and most of it goes into cement kilns.4
Constraint Leases: new limestone blocks are won at auction, and plants must sit near deposits because hauling rock far is uneconomic. CaO LimeKao Kaolin & claysStn Crushed stoneAN Ammonium nitrateMachinery and equipmentFly ash from coal power stations
27%of power-plant ash used in cement, FY25Much Indian cement is blended: grinding units mix clinker with fly ash from coal power stations or slag from steel mills, cutting the clinker, and the carbon, in each bag. Power plants reported about 353 Mt of ash in 2024-25 and found uses for 347 Mt, with Portland pozzolana cement taking about 96 Mt (Lok Sabha reply, 2026).5
Constraint Fly ash depends on coal power: cement took about 27% of 2024-25 ash (calculated), so less coal generation means more slag or calcined clay. Gyp GypsumTc Thermal coalSt SteelMetal productsWaste and recyclingKilns and mills for a building spree
192.3 MtUltraTech cement capacity, June 2025Every new line needs a preheater tower, a rotary kiln, a clinker cooler and vertical roller mills from specialist engineering firms. Orders follow expansion: UltraTech alone had 192.3 Mtpa of grey cement capacity in June 2025 and expected to pass 200 Mtpa by March 2026, in an industry of about 670 Mtpa.6,1,2
Constraint Capacity races demand: about 670 Mtpa of capacity in FY2025 (CMA) against roughly 470 Mt of output in 2025 (USGS estimate) leaves many kilns underused. St SteelCr ChromiumMot Electric motors and drivesMachinery and equipmentElectrical equipmentRock and coal become clinker
~8%of global CO2 from cementIn the kiln, limestone and clay are heated until they fuse into grey nodules of clinker. Burning coal or petcoke, and driving carbon dioxide out of the limestone itself, make cement production responsible for around 8% of global CO2 emissions. UltraTech recovers some kiln exhaust heat through 351 MW of waste-heat power units (2025).3,6,7
Constraint Fuel and carbon: ICRA put coal at about $105 a tonne in February 2026, and carbon pricing is the largest long-run threat. CaO LimeKao Kaolin & claysFe Iron oreTc Thermal coalWHR Waste-heat power (steam Rankine)Transport and logisticsWaste and recyclingGround, blended and bagged
470 MtIndia's cement output, 2025Clinker is ground with gypsum and fly ash or slag, then packed into 50 kg bags at the plant or at grinding units near cities. India made about 470 Mt of cement in 2025, a distant second to China's 1.7 billion tonnes, and ICRA counted 397.7 Mt of sales in the first ten months of FY2026, up 9.3%.1,7
Constraint Freight: cement is heavy and cheap per tonne, so rail and road haulage confine each plant to a market of a few hundred kilometres. Cem CementGyp GypsumPP PolypropylenePaper and packagingPlastic and rubber productsTransport and logisticsStacked at the local dealer
₹340average price per bag, FY2025Trucks carry the bags to dealers who sell to masons, small builders and families building their own homes, often on credit. The average price was about ₹340 a bag in FY2025 and again in January 2026, which works out to roughly ₹6,800 a tonne (calculated) for one of the cheapest manufactured goods a household buys.7
Constraint Pricing: the average bag price fell 7% in FY2025 from the year before, showing how fast added capacity can erode margins. Cem CementSt SteelTransport and logisticsFinance: banking, insurance, marketsWhat the chain shows
A bag of cement is mostly local rock and heat: India has the limestone and the demand, while imported fuel, fly ash supply and carbon cost are the pressure points.
Sources
- Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Cement US Geological Survey, 2026
- Adani's strategic emergence in India's cement landscape Indian Cement Review, 2025
- Why cement is a major contributor to climate change (explainer for Making Concrete Change) Chatham House, 2018
- India's mining sector sees growth in April 2024 following record production levels in FY 2023-24 (Ministry of Mines data) BusinessWorld, 2024
- Lok Sabha unstarred question no. 1478: fly ash generation and utilisation (answered 9 February 2026) Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Lok Sabha, 2026
- Rating rationale: UltraTech Cement Limited Crisil Ratings, 2025
- Indian cement sector update, February 2026 ICRA, 2026