BHEL lines up $2.5 bn investment in next 4 years

Power equipment major BHEL announced on Thursday an investment of $2.5 bn (over Rs 10,000 crore) in the next four years to ramp up capacity to meeting the growing electricity needs.

"We will be investing Rs 5,000 crore in the first phase till December 2009 to reach 15,000 MW capacity. Besides, the Board has also approved an investment of similar amount to take the capacity to 20,000 MW by 2012," BHEL CMD K Ravi Kumar told PTI.

The investment is in line with the order book of the company, which has crossed the 1,00,000 mark and is still growing.On the issue of delay on part of BHEL to supply the equipments, Ravi said, BHEL was not responsible for it as most of the projects which have been facing time overrun are due to changes in the parameters. "Any change in the parameters requires a complete redesigning of the project and that causes delay sometimes," he said.

On the overseas expansion, the company is looking for acquisitions and is likely to appoint global consultants to advise them. Earlier BHEL had set aside Rs 10,000 crore for overseas expansion and were scouting for companies on its own. BHEL had earlier formed a separate unit for the same but the company did not take off, "Our model was perhaps not right, we should have a global consultant to advice us," Kumar said.

Bharat Heavy Electricals to set up power plant in Tripura

ONGC Tripura Power Co (OTPC) has awarded a Rs 22-bn contract to Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) to set up a 726.6 MW capacity gas-based power project in the north-eastern state.

The agreement was signed Monday in Delhi in the presence of ONGC chairman RS Sharma and BHEL chairman and managing director K Ravi Kumar. The contract was for two 363.2 MW cycle gas turbine power plants at Palatana in south Tripura.

According to an ONGC press release, the project, to be completed in the 11th Five Year Plan, will cater to the power demand of north-eastern states.

"The generation project combined with linked transmission project and upstream gas supply project is slated to bring in investments of around Rs 9,000 crore (Rs 90 bn) in the region," said the company statement.

Central transmission utility Power Grid Corp, OTPC and regional state governments are also jointly developing a trunk transmission line.

Besides, Power Grid will also develop inter-state and intra-state sub-transmission systems for the region.
ONGC has 50 per cent equity stake in OTPC, with 26 per cent held by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd and 0.5 per cent by the Tripura government.