Everest Kanto Cylinder Ltd. (EKC), manufacturer of industrial and CNG cylinders, announced that its wholly owned subsidiary in China, EKC Industries (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., has successfully completed the trial production phase and has commenced commercial production.

The plant will have an initial capacity of 200,000 cylinders and company plans to increase its capacity to one million cylinders in the next 3-4 years. The investment in the first phase of its operation is expected to be around US$ 50 million.

China currently has about 400 CNG stations. The sector is growing rapidly and the number is expected to reach 2000 CNG stations by 2010 in order to reduce its dependence on crude oil and pollution levels in various cities.

Last month, Everest Kanto Cylinder successfully completed the acquisition of all the assets of CP Industries, Inc. United States for $66.3 million.

Everest Kanto Cylinder’s net profit declined 6.4% to Rs 15.79 crore on 15.2% increase in net sales to Rs 81.57 crore in Q3 December 2007 over Q3 December 2006.