BHEL, Italian co in race for Rs 1,300 cr NLC order

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and the Italian power major, Ansaldo, are in the race for supplying boilers to Neyveli Lignite Corporation’s Tuticorin project. The value of the order would be around Rs 1,300 crore.



A joint venture of Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) of the Tamil Nadu Government is investing Rs 4,950 crore in the 1,000-MW, coal-fired thermal project. NLC has 89 per cent stake in it.

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The value of boilers and turbines for the project works out to around Rs 2,200 crore. NLC invited ‘expression of interest’ for each equipment. BHEL was the sole respondent for supplying the turbines, whose value would be around Rs 900 crore. BHEL and Ansaldo have shown interest in supplying the boilers.

“We will shortly open the technical bids, after which we will open the financial bids,” V Sethuraman, Director-Power, NLC, told Business Line today.

NLC’s Chairman and Managing Director, S Jayaraman, said that the project would not use supercritical boilers, which, though costlier, are said to be more energy efficient.

The Tuticorin project is NLC’s first foray into coal-fired power plant and as such the company would not like to go in for the supercriticals, whose performance is yet to be experienced in India, he said.

However, for the other project on the drawing board — the 2,000-MW Hirma project in Orissa — NLC may opt for supercritical boilers, he said.

Jayaraman said that the Chinese power equipment manufacturers had not responded to NLC’s invitation for Expression of Interest.

Sources in the company said that this was probably because the Chinese suppliers are experts only in producing equipment for 600 MW units, where they are cheaper because of the standardised design.

ref:
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14682474