Indian tile makers feel the heat of Mideast war energy crunch

India – (Web Desk) – The massive kilns that once blazed day and night in India’s ceramics heartland have fallen silent. In Morbi, a bustling town in Gujarat that supplies floor and wall tiles to homes across the world, factories are shutting their doors — and workers are heading home with empty hands.

Inside one large facility, a 200-metre kiln that never used to stop now sits cold and still. Dust has settled over the heavy machinery. A handful of workers quietly load the last batch of tiles — made three weeks ago — onto trucks. Then, nothing.

“We are suffering a lot,” says Kishor Dulera, who had to close three of his factories in early March, sending hundreds of employees home overnight.

So what went wrong? The answer lies thousands of kilometres away, in the Middle East.

India brings in 60 percent of its cooking gas — known as LPG — from other countries. Most of it travels through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital ocean passageway. But after US-Israeli strikes on Iran triggered a wider regional conflict, that route got blocked. Suddenly, gas stopped flowing freely into India.

The Indian government made a tough but understandable call — it kept gas supplies flowing to ordinary households first, so families could still cook their meals. But that left factories with very little to work with.

The impact has rippled across many industries — from stainless steel to plastics. But nowhere has the pain been felt more sharply than in Morbi.

This one town produces 90 percent of all ceramic tiles made in India, and is among the biggest tile manufacturing hubs on the planet. Its products reach homes in the United States, Thailand, and beyond. Nearly a million people depend on it for their livelihoods — directly or indirectly.

More than 400 factories have now shut down, according to Manoj Arvadiya, who leads the local industry association. He explains why this is especially damaging: tile kilns can’t simply be switched on and off. They need to run continuously, around the clock. Sudden shutdowns can actually break the machinery.

“You can’t run it for two days and then switch it off for one day. It doesn’t work like that,” he says.

For factory owner Hitesh Detroja, the closure of his Lexus Granito plant — which once churned out 30,000 tiles every single day — has been a “disaster.” With no income coming in, he still faces fixed costs and loan repayments of around $74,000 every month.

“This crisis is horrible,” he says simply.

The human cost goes beyond factory owners. Bunty Goswami, a 29-year-old migrant worker, now stands outside a shuttered plant, uncertain about his next step.

“We are confused about what to do — whether we should go home, or not,” he says quietly.

There are some rays of hope. India’s government has ramped up domestic gas production, managed to get a few tankers through, and is buying new supplies from Australia and Russia. Relief should come — but it will take time.

Some factory owners, like Jitendra Aghara of Simpolo Tiles, have chosen to keep running by paying more than double the usual price for gas. It’s painful, but he sees it as an investment in customer trust.

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“If now we suffer a loss for two to three months, in the future we will get it back,” he says with quiet resolve.

Looking further ahead, India’s energy giants like Reliance Industries are developing green hydrogen — a cleaner, locally produced fuel that could one day free Morbi from its dependence on imported gas. Electric and hydrogen-powered kilns are also being explored.

But Aghara is realistic. Alternative fuels, he notes, can’t replace gas “100 percent just yet.”

For now, the kilns stay cold. And a million people wait and wonder when the fires will light again.