K K Bangur Group flagship Graphite India Limited on Tuesday said it has been selected by Forbes Global amongst 200 best small companies for 2004 outside the United States which have annual sales of less than $1 billion.

This was a prestigious recognition conferred on the company for the second year in succession, GIL said in a release.

GIL has three plants at Durgapur, Bangalore and Nashik and manufactures almost the entire range of graphite electrodes up to 700 mm diameter. It claims to be the largest manufacturer of graphite electrodes in South Asia with a 60 per cent market share in India.

The company is in the midst of expanding its Durgapur plant capacity by 20,000 MT at a capital cost of Rs 160 crore (Rs 1.60 billion), before the end of the current financial which will increase its installed graphite electrode manufacturing capacity to 60,000 MT per annum, the release said.