SAIL and GAIL tie up for gas supply
New Delhi: The Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) have signed an agreement for the supply of 3.56 million cubic metre LNG per day to SAILs plants.

The deal makes SAIL the first steel producer in the country to opt for gas as an alternative to coking coal.

The Heads of Agreement (HoA) signed between the two companies envisages supply of natural gas to the tune of 3.56 million cubic metre per day in the year 2006-07 to various steel plants.

The gas would be supplied through the proposed Rs2700 crore Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline of GAIL, being laid as part of the GAS Grid to connect sources of gas to demand centres.
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Snecma plans to sell at least 200 engines over next five years
Bangalore: French aerospace firm Snecma plans to sell over 200 engines for various military and civil aircraft in India over the next five years.

Snecma says that it has already sold over 100 engines in India, and it expects to sell another 200 engines in the Indian market in the next five years. He said the firm expects sales for engines for India's military helicopters and aircraft, like the Mirage 2000 and the Dhruv helicopters. The engines cost anywhere between $5 million and $25 million.

Snecma in 2002 set up its Indian subsidiary/design and research centre at Bangalore with an initial investment of $4 million. The firm leverages India's low cost high talent workforce to perform studies and develop engine components, aircraft equipment and onboard software at its Bangalore centre.
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RIL to export petrochemicals worth $5 billion in 2004-05
Mumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd will export petrochemicals worth $700 million to China this year. RIL says that the country's largest petrochemicals major will export close to $5 billion worth of petrochemicals, used to produce plastics, in 2004-05.

RIL has also said that it's export earnings will be up around 92 per cent from $2.6 billion last year. According to the company, India will consume 12.5 million tonnes of polymers by year 2010 making it the world's third largest polymer consumer.

RIL has said that the Indian petrochemicals business needed investments worth $14 billion to add processing machines by year 2012. He said the business needed consolidation of small fragmented processing capacities. A strategy followed by RIL when it acquired the 80,000 tonnes a year S.M. Dyechem glycol unit last month.

The now-shut SM Dyechem unit would be commissioned within the next three months. The unit will continue using alcohol-based molasses as feedstock.
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Vedanta to invest Rs7,000 crore in aluminium smelter
Mumbai: Vedanta Resources Ltd, the London-based holding company of Sterlite group, has announced plans to invest Rs7,000 crore in India to set up a five-lakh-tonne-per-annum greenfield aluminium smelter in Orissa. The project also includes a 1,000-MW power plant.

This investment is in addition to Vedanta's ongoing investments of Rs10,000 crore in Sterlite (copper), Balco (aluminium), Hindustan Zinc (zinc) and Vedanta Alumina (alumina).

Vedanta, which raised $825 million last year through a London Stock Exchange listing, is currently setting up a 1.4-million tonne per annum alumina refinery in Orissa.

The group has sufficient resources to fund this project, although the debt-equity ratio would be 40:60, officials said. The company said that it has brought in foreign direct investment of $1.5 billion to fund its existing projects.

The company's ongoing expansion projects of Rs10,000 crore are fast approaching completion as scheduled, it said and added that after taking over the state-owned Hindustan Zinc Ltd, its cost of production had declined to $560 per tonne from $800 per tonne.

After the completion of its various projects, Vendanta will be among the top five producers of refined copper, top six producers of zinc and top 10 producers of aluminium in the world, the company said.

Vedanta recently acquired a 51-per cent stake in Zambian copper company Konkola Copper Mines, which produces 2 lakh tpa of refined copper with captive mines.
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Carrera to unveil new loom model in April
Coimbatore: The Italian fashion garment manufacturing group, Carrera Holding Enterprises, plans to unveil its rapier weaving machine models for the Indian market in April.

Carrera will initially assemble the high-performance looms, which would be 'personalised' to Indian conditions, at its Kolhapur plant in Maharashtra. The Italian group would target production of at least 500 looms per month initially.
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NIIT Technologies and SAP tie up
Mumbai: Global IT solutions provider NIIT Technologies Ltd has signed a strategic alliance with SAP to jointly tap the $3.5 billion Indian enterprise resource planning sector.

NIIT says that it's alliance with the world's largest enterprise application provider is at an opportune time for both the companies as the Indian government is investing in enterprise and integrating them on government portals. The alliance would help the companies focus on the government sector, which is taking advantage of emerging technologies, the company added.
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CLB reserves order on plea by Nambiar
Chennai: The Company Law Board (CLB) on Thursday reserved orders on the petition filed by T. P. G. Nambiar, BPL group patriarch, and three group companies against his son-in-law, Rajeev Chandrashekar, Chairman, BPL Communications Ltd.

The CLB has given BPL Communications permission to go ahead with the restructuring of the company with a rider that the board will have to be informed of any proposal to sell or transfer shares.
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Brooks Automation to invest $15 mn in India operations
Chennai: Brooks Automation of the US will invest $15 million in its India operations over the next three years. About $10 million of that will go towards paying salaries, as the company intends to increase the headcount in its software development centre here.

The company now has 62 people on its rolls, which it proposes to raise to 95 in 2005.

Brooks Automation's software division develops software that helps improve efficiency of manufacturing processes. For example, it has developed a software product that can be used by companies, which have RFID (radio frequency identification) installations for processing the information thrown up by RFID devices.

In 2004, its revenues were about $120 million. The company expects this to grow by about 25 per cent each year over the next three years. Revenues from India operations would then be about 10 per cent of the total revenues, it said.
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LogicaCMG to hire over 1,000 in India
Bangalore: LogicaCMG, the global IT services company, has announced it would recruit over 1,000 staff in India in 2005. LogicaCMG already has 1,200 professionals and it expects the growth to continue at 100 per cent in staff additions for at least two years.

LogicaCMG would offer global telecom and financial services support, application management services, system integration, project development and call centre/BPO services, catering also to Indian and Asian customers.
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Wipro and TestQuest tie up for test automation solutions
Bangalore: Wipro Technologies has tied up with TestQuest Inc, a provider of functional test automation solutions for the mobile and wireless industry.

Wipro will provide TestQuest's solutions to its mobile and wireless customers. The two companies also plan to leverage their respective strengths to jointly develop innovative, out-of-the-box, targeted test automation solutions for the mobile and wireless industry, said a Wipro press release.

TestQuest's and Wipro's first joint initiative is the development of a multimedia messaging service automated test solution for one of the world's largest operators.
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TVS Motor account goes to Madison Media
Chennai: Madison Media has bagged the account for the media buying and planning activities of TVS Motor. Worth almost Rs100 crore, the account also includes regional advertising responsibilities, says a press release from the agency.

The TVS Motor account will be handled from Madison Media's Bangalore office.

Other large accounts bagged by Madison Media this fiscal include Airtel, Marico, Jagran, McDonald's and Tata-AIG, according to the press release.

Universal McCann had handled the TVS account for the last four years.

Madison Media works with such select clients as Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Godrej Consumer Products, Godrej Sara Lee, Kinetic, Hyundai, Playwin, Acer, Asian Paints, Kotak and Cadbury. The Rs780-crore Madison Media is a part of Madison Communications, which has seven specialised units in creative, outdoor, public relations, rural, retail and entertainment, apart from media.
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Corporate Results
Cognizant Q4 net up at $30.6 mn
Chennai: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation has reported a net income of $30.6 million on revenues of $172.8 million for the fourth quarter ended December 2004 compared to $17.7 million and $108.2 million respectively in the corresponding previous quarter.

The US-based firm, listed on the Nasdaq, has development centres in India.

For the year ended December 2004, it reported a net income of $100.2 million ($57.4 million) on revenues of $586.7 million ($365.7 million).
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