Commercial operations at the first 1,000 MW unit of Kudankulam nuclear power project are now expected to start by January 22, 2015, as an earlier deadline could not be met due to technical problems. The Nuclear Power Corporation, which is implementing the 2,000 MW plant, has received permission from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) for extending the deadline for commercial operation. The plant, having two units of 1,000 MW capacity each, is being set up with technical cooperation of Russia. The first unit could not start commercial operations by the earlier specified date of October 22 on account of certain technical problems. Nuclear Power Corp submitted before the CERC that technical problem relating to the turbine would be resolved by December 22, 2014 and sought one month time "for eventualities" during the rectification work. Taking into consideration the technical problem, the regulator in an order dated November 10 has allowed Nuclear Power Corp to inject infirm power into the grid for the commissioning tests including full load test of the first unit till January 22, 2015. Infirm power refers to supply that is not committed and mainly fed into the grid as part of testing purposes. At Unit-I, the first and second stage turbine blades and diaphragm have been damaged which are being replaced by taking from Unit-II, according to Nuclear Power Corp. "The replacement of blades and diaphragm would take about from 7 to 8 weeks time. Therefore, the COD is expected to be achieved by January 22, 2015," the company had told the CERC. Successful testing of reactor, turbine-generator, feed water pump system and the control and protection system of different transients are mandatory as per Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, before declaring Commercial Operation Date (COD) of the project. COD refers to the day from which the unit starts full commercial generation of electricity. CERC has also asked the company to file a status report on rectification work carried out at the unit by December 30. Nuclear Power Corp, after synchronised the unit into the grid on July 15, had earlier planned to start commercial operations in September. "However, while raising power, an increase in turbine thrust bearing temperature was observed and the temperature touched operational limit on reaching power level of 850 MW. "For attending to the technical problem, Turbine- Generator was taken off the bar and reactor was shut down on September 26, 2014," the company has informed CERC. The turbine high pressure casing is being dismantled for carrying out inspection of the turbine and identify the problem along with specialists of the turbine manufacturer from Russia. (PTI)
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Under attack from political parties, Delhi's power regulator DERC on Friday withdrew the power tariff hike of up to seven per cent that was announced on Thursday night. The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission said the hike was rolled back "realising" that a number of power generation companies including NTPC, which supply electricity to the city, provided only part information about price of fuel such as coal and gas. The DERC had announced re-introduction of the power purchase adjustment cost (PPAC) surcharge to effect an increase of tariff by up to seven per cent from Saturday. The BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party had slammed DERC for raising the tariff, demanding an immediate roll back. DERC claimed that the decision to withdraw the hike was not due to criticism from the parties. DERC chairperson P.D. Sudhakar said additional information on the cost of producing of power from coal and gas-based power generating stations has been sought and a fresh decision on tariff will be taken within two weeks after examining the details. Asked why the additional information on pricing of fuel and cost of power production was not sought earlier, he said the DERC had increased the tariff provisionally and now it felt that the detail costing of the generating stations should have been analysed before hiking the rates. On Thursday night, the DERC had hiked the tariff by 7 per cent for consumers of BSES Yamuna Power and was fixed at 4.5 per cent for BSES Rajdhani. The hike for consumers of Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd was 2.5 per cent. The political parties were, however, quick to claim credit for the DERC tariff rollback. "The BJP knows it cannot increase the tariff directly, but it tried doing so by a back door process. After the fare hike decision, we had decided to undertake an agitation. The BJP got scared of this which resulted in roll back of prices," senior AAP leader Yogendra Yadav said. "After the Congress threatened to launch widespread protests, the BJP had to relent and once again force the DERC to rollback the hike in prices," Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief Arvinder Singh Lovely said. Delhi BJP unit chief Satish Upadhyay said: "Political atmoshphere created by the BJP with media support forced DERC to withdraw power tariff hike." Asked about the issue, Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung only said the hike has been withdrawn. (Agencies)
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Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) on Friday posted a 10 per cent fall in quarterly profit, its first drop after four quarters of growth, as lower crude prices hurt profitability from both onshore and offshore blocks. Separately, the company said its board had approved investments of over 106 billion rupees ($1.71 billion) to boost production from two western offshore formations. The country's biggest oil and gas explorer has struggled to lift production from its ageing domestic fields and is aggressively investing overseas to secure energy assets for Asia's third-largest economy. The state-owned company posted a profit of 54.45 billion rupees in the three months ended Sept. 30, its fiscal second quarter, down from 60.64 billion rupees a year earlier. Net sales fell 8.7 percent to 203.61 billion rupees. Analysts on average expected ONGC to post net profit of 54.32 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data. A higher burden from subsidised sales of products to state refiners to keep retail prices in check has squeezed ONGC's margins even as it spends heavily to boost overseas assets and maintain output at its domestic fields. The company's cost of helping subsidise fuel fell slightly to 136.41 billion rupees from 137.96 billion in the same quarter last year. The company, in which the Indian government plans to sell a 5 per cent stake worth close to $3 billion, is expected to benefit from government reforms to free diesel prices and raise natural gas prices. Shares of the company, which has a market value of almost $54 billion, closed 2 per cent higher ahead of the results on Friday in a broader Mumbai market that was up 0.38 per cent. ONGC VideshONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas investment arm of ONGC during the week reported a 9.6 per cent rise net profit on the back of surge in oil and gas output. Net profit in April-September rose 9.65 per cent to Rs 2,068 crore as compared to Rs 1,886 crore in the same period a year ago, the company said in a statement. OVL is an unlisted firm and does not give quarterly earning numbers. Crude oil production rose 1.2 per cent to 2.74 million tons while gas output soared 10.43 per cent to 1.557 billion cubic meters. Revenue was up nearly 13 per cent to Rs 11,362 crore. (Agencies)
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Blaming the Maharashtra government for not honouring "certain critical obligations", Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) has ended an agreement to develop a Rs 12,000 crore (about $2 billion) metro rail line in Mumbai. "Due to non-fulfilment of various obligations by the state government, the concession agreement for the Mumbai Metro Line 2 (Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd corridor) is terminated despite the best efforts by the company and the state," the Anil Ambani-led company said in statement. The announcement comes after months of rumours about the company walking out of the project and within days of the new BJP-led government assuming power in Mumbai. The 32-km-long, fully-elevated Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd corridor project was awarded to an RInfra-led consortium through an international competitive bidding in August 2009. RInfra, part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, held a 48 per cent in Mumbai Metro Transport Private Limited (MMTPL), the company created to undertake the project. Canada's SNC Lavlin and Reliance Communication Ltd held 26 per cent each in MMTPL, which was to build and operate the project for 35 years, extendable by another 10 years. The statement further said the concessionaire signed the termination agreement at "no cost and no claims" to either party and the state administration will return the Rs 160-crore bank guarantee to the company. The company had achieved financial closure for the project way back in October 2010. French company Systra was the civil design consultant for the project. RInfra already runs the city's first metro line connecting the western suburb of Versova with Ghatkopar on the east since May. The second line was stuck due to pending environment clearances for a car depot at Mankhurd on the northeastern suburb planned to take care of maintenance work. The state government and RInfra had signed the termination agreement at "no cost and no claims" to either party, the release said, adding the state would return the bank guarantee of Rs 160 crore to the company. Mutually AgreeableThe Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) said the concession agreement arrived at between the state government and Mumbai Metro Transport (RInfra-led consortium) has been terminated "mutually". "The concession agreement arrived at between the State and MMTPL has been terminated mutually. A formal communication from MMTPL for return of the bank guarantee is awaited and the procedure to return the money will follow immediately thereafter," the State-run development agency said in a statement this evening. With the termination of the agreement, all commitments or liabilities of RInfra towards the project have been annulled with immediate effect, the statement added. The previous Congress government led by Prithviraj Chavan had merged the Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd metro corridor with the proposed Dahisar-Charkop line and also planned to construct the entire project underground instead of elevated line as originally planned. The new Dahisar-Bandra-Mankhurd line will be around 40.2-km long and will have 37 underground stations and is estimated to cost over Rs 28,000 crore, the costliest project ever undertaken in the state. The city development authority is currently conducting a feasibility study on this line. The MMRDA is also in the process of finalising bidders for the third 32.5-km Colaba-Bandra-Seepz underground corridor envisaging an investment of Rs 23,000 crore. The state has also decided to execute both metro projects under engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) model. RInfra had not participated in the bidding process for the third line.
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India's largest real estate firm DLF Ltd, which has been shut out of capital markets for three years after a regulatory probe, reported a 9 per cent rise in profits in its second quarter, with sales edging higher. DLF, burdened with $3 billion of debt, said late on Thursday that net profit for the July-Sept quarter was 1.1 billion Indian rupees ($17.89 million) versus 1 billion rupees a year ago. Sales rose 3 percent to 20.13 billion rupees. Analysts on average expected the company to post a profit of 1.08 billion rupees. The Delhi-based company is primarily engaged in development of housing, office and retail properties. It has a huge land bank with potential developable area of over 300 million sq feet, of which about 60 million sq feet is under construction. In its harshest ever punishment, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Oct. 13 barred DLF and some of its executives from capital markets, penalising them for failing to disclose key information at the time of the company's record-breaking 2007 market listing. The indebted company received temporary relief after it was allowed to redeem its investment in mutual funds to meet its cash flow needs. DLF's cash to short-term debt stood at 0.32 at the end of March, suggesting its cash is not sufficient to repay debt maturing within a year. DLF did not provide a full cash flow statement or an update on its debt position in Thursday's brief statement. (Agencies)
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The government has increased excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 1.50 a litre but retail prices will not go up as oil companies offset the hike against an expected reduction on account of falling global oil rates.The duty hike, which was notified late Wednesday (12 November) evening, will boost government revenue by about Rs 13,000 crore on an annual basis and help contain budget deficit.Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation's largest fuel retailer, said the excise duty hike will not be passed on to consumers and will be adjusted against reduction in rates that was likely by this weekend.The fall in international oil prices had resulted in six consecutive reduction in petrol prices since August and two in diesel in the last one month. There was a possibility of another round of cut this weekend.Excise duty on normal or unbranded petrol was hiked from Rs 1.20 per litre to Rs 2.70 per litre and unbranded diesel from Rs 1.46 a litre to Rs 2.96, a government notification said.The same on branded petrol was raised from Rs 2.35 a litre to Rs 3.85 and on branded diesel from Rs 3.75 to Rs 5.25 per litre."For the moment, we are not passing on the increase in excise duty. It is being absorbed by companies and will be adjusted against review in rates which was due on Saturday," IOC Chairman B Ashok said.Revision in rates will be considered at the next fortnight (end of November), he said. "As and when we look at price revision, whenever it is due, we will look at the situation and decide on revising rates then."Before the duty hike, petrol cost Rs 64.25 a litre in Delhi and diesel Rs 53.35 a litre. They will continue to be priced at the same rate."There is no increase in retail prices," he said. While the fall in global rates and the resultant cuts in retail prices have led to loss of revenue to the exchequer, particularly of state governments, there wasn't any loss to the central government on account of reduction in petrol and diesel prices as excise duty on the two fuel is fixed and not ad valorem.Unbranded petrol at present attracts a basic excise duty of Rs 1.20 per litre, a special additional excise duty of Rs 6 a litre and a road cess of Rs 2 per litre.Unbranded diesel attracts a basis excise duty of Rs 1.46 a litre and road cess of Rs 2 per litre.The total excise duty on unbranded petrol will rise from Rs 9.20 to Rs 10.70 per litre and that on unbranded diesel from Rs 3.46 to Rs 4.96 per litre.Branded petrol attracts an excise duty of Rs 10.35 per litre which would go up to Rs 11.85 per litre and excise duty on branded diesel will go up from Rs 5.75 to Rs 7.25 a litre.State-owned fuel retailers Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL), following the fortnightly review practice, were due to revise retail rates of petrol and diesel on Saturday.Going by the trend in international market, retail rates should come down.Petrol price was last cut by Rs 2.41 a litre on November 1. On the same day, diesel rates were reduced by Rs 2.25 per litre.Petrol price has been cumulatively cut by Rs 9.36 per litre since August.Diesel price was cut for the first time in more than five years on October 19 by Rs 3.37 a litre when the government decided to deregulate the fuel. This was followed by another reduction on November 1.Sources said oil firms revise rates of petrol, which was deregulated in June 2010, and diesel on 1st and 16th of every month based on average international oil price and rupee-US dollar exchange rate.Brent crude fell to a four-year low of USD 79.86 per barrel amid signs that OPEC remains unwilling to reduce output to ease concern of a global supply glut.Brent has lost almost 30 per cent since its June peak amid speculation that global supply is outpacing demand. (Agencies)
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Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the country's biggest refiner, is exploring options including a merger to save loss-making unit Chennai Petroleum Corp (CPCL), its chairman B. Ashok said on Wednesday. CPCL's attempts to raise funds have been constrained due to a 15.4 percent stake held in it by a unit of Iran's Naftiran Inter Trade Co Ltd (NICO). Western sanctions against Tehran due to its nuclear programme have made businesses difficult for companies with ties to Iran. "At the moment there are certain difficulties," Ashok said. "CPCL requires infusion of funds and we are looking at various options including a merger of CPCL with IOC." CPCL has informed the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction, a government body that identifies sick firms, about a significant reduction in its net worth due to volatile oil prices and forex losses in the year ended March 31. The company in May planned a rights issue to raise up to 10 billion rupees ($163 million) but abandoned it after NICO said it wanted to subscribe to the shares and maintain its holding. Sanctions have toughened monetary transactions with Iran, making it difficult for the Indian company to raise funds from the market or allow parent IOC to infuse funds. CPCL, whose two refineries can process 230,000 barrels per day of oil and account for about 5.4 percent of India's total capacity, could not pay dividends to NICO in 2010/11 and 2011/12 due to the sanctions, it said in its annual report. The refiner stopped processing Iranian oil in 2012 after losing insurance for those supplies, while cover for crude imports from other countries was cut due to its ties with the Iranian firm. ICO has initiated steps to build a 5 million-tonnes-a-year liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Ennore in the country's east coast by the end of 2017 or early 2018, Ashok said. The company owns a 45 percent stake in the LNG project. "We are talking to various parties ... we will give a stake to whoever adds value to the project," Ashok said. IOC plans to buy 0.7 million tonnes annually of LNG from the Cameron LNG plant in Lousiana where Japan's Mitsubishi has a stake. It will buy 1.2 million tonnes from Petronas' British Columbia project in which it has a 10 percent stake. (Reuters)
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India, the world's third-largest buyer of overseas coal, may be able to stop imports of power-generating thermal coal in the next three years as state behemoth Coal India steps up production, Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday.Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has asked Coal India, the world's largest miner of the fuel, to more than double its output to 1 billion tonnes by 2019 to feed existing and upcoming power plants.Modi has promised round-the-clock power to all Indians by 2022 and recently announced the nationalised coal industry would be opened up to allow private firms to compete with Coal India, which accounts for 80 percent of the country's output.Declining shipments to India would drag on global coal markets grappling with oversupply as top consumer and importer China tries to shift towards cleaner fuels."I'm very confident of achieving these targets and am very confident that India's current account deficit will not be burdened with the amount of money we lose for imports of coal," Goyal told a conference."Possibly in the next two or three years we should be able to stop imports of thermal coal."Coal generates three-fifths of India's power, but a shortage of the fuel means millions still go without electricity and power cuts are common.Around 60 of India's 103 power plants had enough coal for less than a week's usage as of Nov. 2 due to lower supplies from Coal India.Imports of coal have been surging as a result, equating to about 1 per cent of India's economy.Shipments rose to 168.4 million tonnes last fiscal year, and the government estimated earlier this year that the domestic shortage would range between 185 and 265 million tonnes by 2016-17.And some analysts were sceptical the country would be able to end imports soon."India's reliance on imports is not going away anytime soon," said Prakash Duvvuri, head of research at consultancy OreTeam."Obviously coal demand will continue to mean imports are needed in India."(PTI)
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