NTPC nuclear power joint venture by June
Special Correspondent, Jun 02, 2009

KOLKATA: NTPC will form its joint venture with the Nuclear Power Corporation India by June, NTPC Chairman R. S. Sharma said. The company is likely to be formed by July.

He said the number of directors from either side had also been decided for this joint venture, in which NPCIL would hold the majority equity of 51 per cent with NTPC holding the remaining equity. He also said that orders of Rs. 18,000 crore had been placed by the company towards meeting its XI Plan capacity creation target of 22,430 MW. “We are confident of meeting the target,” he said. NTPC had a shortfall in the X Plan.

The NTPC chief was here in connection with the signing of the fuel supply agreement (FSA) with Coal India under which the latter will supply 114.7 million tonnes of coal to NTPC for its 15 power plants, with both sides attracting penalty clauses if the supply or the offtake drops below 90 per cent.

CIL Chairman Partha S. Bhattacharyya said that this was expected to become the model FSA for all power plants. “About 306 million tonnes of coal has been allocated based on March 31, 2009, operations for the 78 State and public sector power plants under the aegis of the Central Electricity Authority and this would be the guiding FSA”.

He said FSA signing was made mandatory by the New Coal Distribution Policy, 2007.

Mr. Sharma said the NTPC-CIL joint venture would develop a mine at Brahmani (Orissa) where a 4,000 MW power plant could also be set up. CIL Director, Technical, N. C. Jha, said that the mine had reserves of 1,100 million tonnes although detailed exploration would be done after formation of the joint venture. While the mine would require an investment of Rs. 1,500 crore the power plant would need at least Rs. 20,000 crore. Mr. Sharma said NTPC would start operations at its captive mines by 2011-12. It plans to import around 12.5 million tonnes of coal this fiscal against about six million tonnes in 2008-09. Its total coal requirement has been pegged at 145 million tonnes of which 16 million tonnes would be supplied by SCCL.

He also said that the company would create a non-conventional energy capacity of 1,000 MW by 2017. It has already set up a 500 MW wind farm in Karnataka and is in discussions with Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. It also has plans for tapping solar energy.