03 Sept 2009;business-standard.com:T E Narasimhan:Chennai: Having threatened to do so for months, Hyundai Motor said it has finally decided to move production of the premium hatchback i20 model for the European markets to Turkey, from its Sriperumpudur facility near Chennai. The Chennai facility will continue to service Indian and non-European markets. In July 2009, Hyundai India’s Managing Director H S Lheem had said the company was planning to move production to Turkey, the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Lheem had explained that exports from India to Europe had become uncompetitive because the country did not have free trade agreements with European countries. Recent labour problems in the factory — the workers went on strike between April 20 and May 7 and again from July 23 to July 28 against a wage settlement agreement — also prompted the decision. Confirming the development, Hyundai Motor spokesperson Rajiv Mitra said the company will manufacture the i20 from its unit which was set up by Hyundai Assan, a joint venture between Hyundai Motor and Turkish industrial conglomerate Kibar Holding in Izmit, Turkey. The plant produces the Verna and Lavita models and has an annual capacity of 100,000 units. The company plans to produce 70,000 to 80,000 units of the i20 from the Turkish plant. According to reports, Hyundai is expected to invest $75 million (around Rs 375 crore) in the Izmit plant. Meanwhile, the Sriperumpudur facility has set a target to manufacture 50,000 units of the i20 for the Indian market and 20,000 units for non-European markets including Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and other South East Asian countries. The facility currently produces around 12,000 i20s both for export and domestic market.
Plan panel for free pricing of oil, gas, coal in 2009-10
Tuesday, 01 September 2009
01 Sept 2009;timesofindia.indiatimes.com:NEW DELHI: The Planning Commission on Tuesday recommended that prices of petrol, diesel, gas and coal should be freed or linked to international market, a move if accepted would make energy costlier."Bring pricing of oil, gas and coal to trade parity or competitive marketing basis," the Commission said in a document on the Integrated Energy Policy (IEP) which was placed before the meeting of the full Planning Commission chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Noting that the progress on various recommendations of the IEP, approved by Cabinet in December 2008, has been slow, the Commission said, prices of various petroleum goods and coal are still administered. Besides suggesting linking of petrol and diesel prices with international markets, the Commission recommended raising of gas prices by public sector companies. "Natural gas prices of PSUs (are) very low and need revision," it said in a presentation before the meeting which besides Singh and other Commission members was attended by about a dozen ministers, including Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora and Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde. Oil marketing companies are suffering losses as the government has not raised the prices of domestic petrol and diesel in line with increase in crude prices in the global market where the costs have shot up to $70-72 a barrel from $34 in December 2008.
02 Sept 2009;business-standard.com:Nevin John & Pb Jayakumar:Mumbai :Reliance Industries (RIL), India’s largest private sector firm by market capitalisation, is planning a foray into the global pipeline construction business with a bid for building Rs 3,000 crore worth of oil and gas pipeline in Mexico. The company, which built a pipeline worth Rs 20,000 crore from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Bharuch in Gujarat for transporting natural gas from its Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin, will be scouting for opportunities abroad, as its pipeline division itself has the size of a mid-cap company, said an executive who did not wish to be identified. Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, had recently announced it would take bids from international firms to build a $600 million, 230 km, natural gas pipeline to increase transmission capacities in the central and western parts of the country. The award will go to the lead bidder within six months. An RIL spokesperson declined to comment on the developments. However, the executive said, “We are looking to cash in on our construction and engineering expertise. The successful completion of our first project gives us confidence to grow the business separately.” RIL has also expressed its desire to build two pipelines in India, which are yet to get the government’s nod. The two projects from Kakinada, to Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu and to Bardhaman in West Bengal, will require the same investment incurred for the first pipeline, said other company sources. RIL’s first pipeline, spanning 1,440 km, had become operational five months earlier, along with the beginning of gas production from the KG basin. The pipeline, which is the country’s longest for gas transportation, was constructed in three years. More than 1,500 workers, including skilled ones from China, had worked to lay the pipeline, coordinated by offices in Mumbai and Kakinada.
Auto firms cruise through August on back of domestic sales, exports
Tuesday, 01 September 2009
02 Sept 2009:business-standard.com:New Delhi: Buoyant exports and brisk sales in the domestic market have helped car manufacturers — led by Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Mahindra & Mahindra — to post a growth in domestic sales for the month of August this year. This is a continuation of the robust sales witnessed in July, when the total passenger vehicle industry grew by around 10 per cent. Maruti Suzuki’s domestic sales last month grew by an impressive 29 per cent, compared with the sales achieved in August last year. Maruti, which commands a share of over 50 per cent in the domestic market, sold a record 69,961 vehicles, which is the highest volume achieved for the current financial year. In July, the car manufacturer’s domestic sales grew by around 28 per cent. Maruti’s exports, largely comprising the A-Star — its fifth strategic model to key European markets — grew by a staggering 156 per cent. In August, the company exported 14,847 units of cars. A Mumbai-based analyst said the company’s sales had come primarily from the good demand witnessed for the A-Star model (which sells around 3,000 units per month) launched last year and the Ritz (6,000 units) which was introduced in the domestic market this year. “The other key factor which contributed to last month’s robust sales is the car loans made by PSU banks, like SBI, which begin at a rate of 8 per cent,” a Maruti executive said. According to the company’s CEO and MD Shinzo Nakanishi, the company expects domestic sales to grow by around 10 per cent for the whole of the current year. At the beginning of the year, the company’s domestic sales growth was pegged at around 5 per cent. Hyundai, the second-largest player, sold 24,401 units of cars in the domestic market, which is 13 per cent higher than the August sales of last year. The company exported 25,120 units of cars in August, which is a growth of 9 per cent. “We are now entering the festival season phase and strong sales would help the industry return to a healthy growth,” Hyundai Motor India Ltd Senior Vice-President (marketing & sales) Arvind Saxena said. However, going forward, Saxena said sales of cars could get impacted if interest rates begin to rise and if inadequate monsoons dampen rural sales. Mahindra & Mahindra’s August sales grew by 42 per cent, largely due to the brisk demand for its utility vehicle, Xylo, which was launched this year. The company sold 16,631 vehicles in August this year, against the 11,731 units sold last year. Mahindra Renault’s sales for August dipped by 68 per cent. The company sold 469 units of Logan cars during the month. Honda Siel sold 4,102 cars last month, which is a 4 per cent growth over last year. The company sold 1,029 units of the premium A2 compact car Jazz, which was launched this year. Company officials said there was good demand for this premium model. Skoda Auto India posted a 33 per cent growth in domestic sales, selling 1,463 units of cars. The company says it continues to witness brisk demand for its premium model, the Skoda Superb, and executive models like the Octavia and Laura. August sales for Tata Motors grew by 11.32 per cent, with the company selling 17,364 units of the Nano, Indica, Indigo and utility vehicles like the Safari. The company sold 2,501 units of Nano last month. Sales of the company’s commercial vehicles (CVs) grew by 28 per cent mainly on account of better demand for its stable of light commercial vehicles. Total number of CVs sold for August 2009 stood at 29,762 units. One notable feature in the company’s August sales is the positive sales growth witnessed in the medium and heavy commercial vehicles segment, which witnessed a growth of 10 per cent with the sale of 11,118 units of trucks. This is the second month, after July, that this segment has witnessed a positive growth. However, total exports, comprising passenger and commercial vehicles for Tata Motors in August, dipped by 44 per cent to 2,684 units.
1 Sept 2009;economictimes.indiatimes.com:Nandini Sen Gupta & Sumit Chaturvedi:Even before Tata Motors starts full-scale production of Nano at its Sanand plant in Gujarat, suppliers of key components of the world’s cheapest car are being approached by some of the largest carmakers for cost-effective technology takeaways from the project. According to German component maker Robert Bosch, which developed engine and fuel injection technologies for the small car, some of its European clients are now asking for low-cost technologies from the Nano project to be transferred to them.
European carmakers Volkswagen and Daimler have sought some technologies developed by Bosch, said a local vendor who asked not to be named. The e46 billion components maker, however, refused to confirm the names.
The Tata Nano project has been a showcase project and is giving Bosch a good entry point with other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that were thinking of the same segment, said Bernd Bohr, member of the board of management at Bosch.
“The strategic direction is to learn from these low-priced vehicle projects for those in Europe, which will not be on the same price levels.to transfer good ideas we have developed here to other markets,” he said.
Bosch is already involved with the Nissan-Renault-Bajaj ultra low-cost car project. But the engine parts maker is also transferring its Nano learning to clients in Europe. “Bosch has acquired a large gasoline injection project in Europe where we have already used some of the ideas and achieved significant cost reduction,” Mr Bohr said.
Although these European projects are “still in the early development phase”, Bosch says it’s doing an encore of what it did with the Nano. “For the Nano project, we basically started with a clean sheet of paper, without a lot of baggage and came up with many ideas, which are definitely low-cost but provide sufficient functionality for the end customers,” Mr Bohr said. Bosch now wants to take this as a “new base to build upon for European and American projects.”
The interest of global vehicle makers or OEMs in the Nano project is understandable. The biggest draw is its low-cost and drawing board innovation. Bosch says it has had a lot of involvement from boards of European OEMs.
“They said, ‘How can this be done, how can an engine management system, say, be made within X-dollars?’ And we are quite open to discussing what can we do differently, come up with something which is simpler but with the same functionality,” Mr Bohr explained.
Meanwhile, the Nano itself will not see exports till Tata Motors ramps up capacity and moves to its new plant in Sanand. “Our current focus is to first face the demand in the Indian market as we are working from interim manufacturing facilities at Uttarakhand before our main plant at Sanand comes up. The supplies are therefore in limited quantities, so it will be our endeavor to fulfill demand in India before we can even start looking outside,” said Rajiv Dube, president-passenger vehicles, Tata Motors.
Once the capacity is ready and waiting, Nano will drive into overseas markets, and Europe is a priority market. Tata Motors has already displayed a European version of the Nano at the Geneva Motor Show called Nano Europa that will not only have a bigger engine, but is different in many other ways. However, the Europa launch is not imminent, Mr Dube said. The Nano was formally rolled out this summer and has been selling around 2,500 units per month.
1 Sept 2009;timesofindia.indiatimes.com:NEW DELHI: Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) dented Tata Motors' first quarter earnings as the company reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 329 crore
against a net profit of Rs 720 crore in the same period last fiscal, wiping off gains made from accounting changes and asset sales. The earnings were badly impacted by the consolidation of figures of the two luxury brands that Tata Motors bought from Ford last year. JLR had a loss before interest, tax and exceptional items of Rs 873 crore in April-June quarter after vehicle sales plunged in US and Europe. "Continued adverse global automotive market conditions have resulted in a reduction in JLR volumes during the quarter. The wholesale volumes declined by about 52%," the company said.
While Tata Motors reported a 13% increase in net sales at Rs 16,290 crore after the addition of the two brands, the company's expenditure also moved up significantly due to the consolidation. Total expenditure for the company was up 27% at Rs 16,738 crore against Rs 13,166 crore in the first quarter of the previous fiscal.
Employee costs surged 64% to Rs 2,044 crore in Q1 (Rs 1243 crore) and depreciation and amortisation more than doubled to Rs 844 crore against Rs 359 crore. Product development costs moved up to Rs 93 crore from Rs 14 crore, while raw material costs were up 3% at Rs 9610 crore. Net interest and discounting charges were up 80% at Rs 583.5 crore from Rs 324 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.
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