Tata Power to build India's first floating solar plant
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
22 March 2011;timesofindia.indiatimes.com:MUMBAI: Tata Power on Tuesday said it will be building the country's first low-cost, high-efficiency floating solar plant in partnership with an Australian company which invented the technology. Sunengy, the Australian company, and Tata Power will begin constructing a pilot plant that uses the Liquid Solar Array (LSA) technology from August this year, a press release issued here said. LSA uses traditional concentrated photovoltaic technology but rather than mounting the cells on a frame, it is made to float on water, making it low-cost, cyclone-proof and less tedious as it does not involve any land acquisition, it added. "It effectively turns a dam into a very large battery, offering free solar storage and opportunity for improved water resource management," the inventor of the technology and Sunengy's Executive Director aInd Chief Technology Officer, Phil Connor, said. Tata Power's Executive Director, Banmali Agrawala, confirmed the tie-up for the "nascent technology" and said this is a part of the company's effort to invest in clean and eco-friendly technologies.
Honda to hire 1,500 for its second two-wheeler plant in India
Monday, 21 March 2011
21 March 2011;deccanherald.com:New Delhi:Two-wheeler maker Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) today said it will hire about 1,500 people for its second plant at Tapukara in Rajasthan, which will commence operations from July-August this year. Besides, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Japanese auto major Honda Motor Co will announce setting up its third manufacturing unit in India very "soon". "We will start production at Tapukara from July-August, with an initial capacity of 6 lakh units annually. We plan to hire 1,500 people, including permanent and contract workers," HMSI President and CEO Shinji Aoyama told reporters here. The capacity of the facility is expandable up to 12 lakh units annually and HMSI will have a total workforce of 3,000 people at Tapukara then, he said without giving any timeframe. HMSI has invested Rs 600 crore on the first phase of the Tapukara plant. Aoyama said the total investment will come close to Rs 1,000 crore in the second phase, when the overall capacity will be expanded up to 12 lakh units. The company has so far cumulatively put in about Rs 1,300 crore in India, he added. HMSI currently has a plant at Manesar in Haryana which can produce up to 16 lakh units every year. It employs a total of 7,000 people, including contract labourers. Aoyama, who will be leaving India after a four-year stint to join the parent Honda Motor Co next month, said under his tenure HMSI was able to bring down the number of unpleasant instances arising due to labour issues. "I believe, we can somehow manage the issues as we are not squeezing people. Still some issues are pending... Workers will never stop demanding and management will never stop listening to them," he added. About 2,500 casual labourers went on a 2-day flash strike in December last year after one of them was "manhandled" by a security staff, thus resulting in production loss of over 5,000 units. In 2009, HMSI suffered a loss of over Rs 300 crore after workers went on a go-slow strike, which had resulted in an output dip of over 50 per cent for nearly three months that ended in October. In 2005 also, the firm witnessed a violent strike by workers that rocked Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt. HMSI today said it is targeting to dethrone Honda's erstwhile joint venture with the Hero Group from the No 1 two-wheeler maker position in India within the next 10 years, with focus on the rural areas and plans to introduce its first 100cc bike next year. When asked if the company would consider a third plant in future, Aoyama said: "This is just the beginning of our expansion and we will expand our capacities. We are currently under deep study (for setting up a third facility), which will be disclosed soon." The company will add capacities over the next 10 years in a step-by-step manner, he added. HMSI expects to sell a total of 16.5 lakh units in 2010-11, a jump of 30 per cent over the last fiscal. It is aiming for an increase of over 27 per cent in its sales to 21 lakh units in 2011-12. On the other hand, Hero Honda crossed 40 lakh units sales mark last fiscal and is aiming for 50 lakh units sales in 2010-11. In December last year, Honda had decided to sell its entire 26 per cent stake in India's largest two-wheeler maker Hero Honda to the other promoter -- BM Munjal-led Hero Group.
Cairn-Vedanta deal: FinMin for legal opinion on ONGC’s claims
Monday, 21 March 2011
22 March 2011;dailypioneer.com:New Delhi: The finance ministry wants a legal opinion from the law ministry to be taken on royalty state-owned ONGC pays on behalf of Cairn India before Cabinet considers giving nod to Vedanta Resources’ $9.6 billion acquisition of Cairn India. Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) owns 30 per cent in Cairn India’s mainstay Rajasthan oilfields but pays royalty on not just its share of oil but also on Cairn’s 70 per cent share. It had on July 14, 2010, a month before Vedanta announced buying most of Cairn Energy Plc’s stake in Cairn India, cited contractual provisions to say royalty -- like other duties, levies and fees alongside capital and operating expenditure -- is recoverable from sale of oil before profits are split between all stakeholders including government. Sources said the finance ministry was of the view that the grant of consent for the deal cannot be made conditional upon settlement of disputes and instead asked the oil ministry to seek a legal opinion from the law ministry on the issue of cost recovery of royalty paid by ONGC before taking the proposal to the Cabinet. This was the finance ministry’s response to the waterdown draft cabinet note that the oil ministry had circulated to the ministries of law, finance, home, environment and corporate affairs before taking Cairn-Vedanta deal to the Cabinet for approval. Sources said other ministries too have concurred with the view that government approval to the $9.6 billion deal should be given. In all likelihood, the approval may come up before the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for consideration next week. Cairn India had on November 23 last year, more than three months after its parent firm Cairn Energy announced the sale of its majority stake in the company to Vedanta, made conditional applications seeking government nod for the deal. Some say the conditional application run contrary to this month’s Delhi High Court ruling that held the government’s sovereign right to approve transactions resulting in a change in the status of companies operating national resources. It used this ground to allow the government to terminate Canoro Resources’ contract for the Amguri oilfield in Assam. The Canadian firm had sold shares to Barbados-based MASS Financial Corp without seeking prior government nod. Sources said Cairn, after repeated reminders, had on November 23 applied for the sale of a 51 per cent stake to Vedanta, but with a rider that government consent was not mandatory and that the corporate deal involving a share transfer does not trigger partner ONGC’s preemption rights.
22 March 2011;timesofindia.indiatimes.com:MUMBAI: The London listed-Essar Energy said it expects to sign the deal to acquire Royal Dutch Shell's UK refinery for $350 million over the next ten days. The Ruia family-controlled Essar Energy expects the transaction to be completed by the second half of this year. Last month, the company made an offer to buy Shell's Stanlow refinery and had been granted exclusivity to the offer until April 1 by the Anglo-Dutch energy giant. "We will focus on integrating the business into Essar Energy". The UK unit also provides us an opportunity to export value-added products from our Vadinar refinery in Gujarat," said its vice chairman Prashant Ruia over a conference call from London while announcing the company's 2010 earnings. Essar Energy's revenue increased 42% to $10 billion compared with $7 billion in 2009, primarily due to higher refinery sales. Net profit was up 20% to $248 million during the period under review. Apart from refining, Essar Energy has a presence in power. It has a capex plan of $8 billion for setting up 11,470MW of power generation capacity. The company's CEO Naresh Nayyar said that the demand for energy in India is expected to continue to grow sharply. The company will up capacity at the Vadinar refinery from 300,000 barrels a day to 375,000 barrels. Essar Energy intends to largely fund all this expansions through the money it raised through IPO and a subsequent convertible bond offering.
21 March 2011;business-standard.com:Hyderabad: The Nuclear Power Corporation of India’s chairman & managing director, S K Jain, says the country’s atomic power units are completely safe and have every thing at their command to tackle any kind of adverse situation. Addressing a media conference here yesterday, Jain said there would not be any slowing in the country’s nuclear energy programme in the light of public perceptions of what had happened at the one in Japan. He termed the hydrogen explosion and a brief exposure of spent fuel storage place of a unit that was already stopped for maintenance at the fourth unit of the nuclear power plant in Japan as just an incident and not even an accident. “The reactors, the containment of nuclear fuel, have remained intact even in the face of an earthquake of the magnitude of 9 on a Richter scale,” he said, while denying any largescale radiation leakage from the site. According to him, the situation at the Japanese power plant has been completely brought under control, as the cooling of the spent fuel storage area of the stricken fourth unit began from yesterday. He said an error of judgement of half a metre (height) had probably led to the Japanse problem, essentially caused by failure of diesel generators as water entered these due to the tsunami. “It was only the question of removing the decay heat that was left after successfully shutting the reactor.This is not the time to go into the details of why the plant personnel did not immediately start using sea water to cool the fuel containment. In our country, the plant engineers are always instructed to use seawater in such scenarios, even if that meant shutting the reactor for several months,” he said. Adding: “As for ourselves, safety is always the top priority and safety review at our nuclear power plants is a continuous process.” The existing plants and those proposed to be built are completely safe even in the case of sabotage, apart from any natural calamity, according to him. Being very conservative on safety, nuclear plants located on the western and eastern sea coasts are built at a height more than what was thought necessary by NPCIL, he said. The ongoing safety review did not mean the units were less safe nor that there would be any slowing in execution of new projects. He said 50 of the 54 nuclear power reactors in Japan were still working, taking care of the country’s energy needs.
PNGRB imposes Rs 25 lakh fine on 'illegal' pipeline
Sunday, 20 March 2011
21 March 2011;business-standard.com:Ajay Modi:New Delhi: Great Eastern Energy Corporation to appeal The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), the country downstream oil sector regulator, has declared as ‘illegal’ a pipeline being laid by Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd (GEECL), the country’s first coal bed methane (CBM) gas producer. In an order passed last week, it imposed a penalty of Rs 25,00,000. The company says it will appeal. “Under the production sharing contract, we have permission to lay a pipeline to supply gas to our customers. All our actions comply with law. We will file an appeal against this order at an appropriate forum,” Prashant Modi, president and chief operating officer, told Business Standard. Modi added the company had already invested nearly Rs 800 crore in the CBM project, of which Rs 100 crore was spent on the pipeline. The London Stock Exchange-listed company is operator of the CBM block in Raniganj, West Bengal, that it had won through a bidding process in 2001. Under the contract signed with the central government the company has the freedom and right to explore, develop, produce and market CBM gas in India. The contract also allows the operator to use CBM for operations like gas lifting and power generation. GEECL commenced gas production from this block in 2007, to become the country’s first gas producer from CBM, a non-conventional source. It currently sells 0.16 million standard cubic metres of gas per day to industrial consumers in the region. The Board had in 2008 advised the company to apply for pipeline authorisation to PNGRB, since the company did not possess authorisation before the Board came into being. When the Board learnt of the company’s plans to lay two pipelines to Kulti and Durgapur from Asansol for selling CBM gas, a letter was issued to the company in February 2009 to apply to the Board. A reminder was sent that September but there was no response from the company. In October 2009, the company informed the Board that it was setting up a dedicated pipeline for supply to their customers. In January 2010, the Board informed the company that a pipeline serving more than one customer did not fall under the category of a dedicated pipeline and therefore the company could not apply under Regulation 19 of the Board, meant for dedicated pipelines. GEECL was advised to apply under Regulation 18, that requires an operator to declare the pipeline as a common carrier or contract carrier (one-third capacity for use by other companies). As the company did not pay heed to this, a show-cause notice was issued in December 2010 that also asked the company to stop incremental activity. However, through a communication dated December 27, 2010, the company informed the Board that were are not covered within the scope of the law and required no authorisation. GEECL had also approached the Delhi High Court, questioning the Board’s jurisdiction. The Court did not grant a stay and directed that hearings proceed before the Board. In the hearing that followed at the Board, the company’s counsel stressed that since the CBM contract with the central government pre-dated the establishment of the Board in 2006, the regulations of the PNGRB Act did not apply to the company. In an order dated March 18, the Board said it had no alternative but to declare the pipeline being laid by the entity to be unauthorised and illegal.
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