Posco telescopes construction schedule of Orissa project
Bhubaneswar: South Korean steel major Posco has announced some changes in the scope and implementation of its schedule for the construction of its 12 million tonne integrated steel plant in Orissa.

As per the changes, put into effect by the Posco board, the company will ramp up the first phase capacity of the venture from three million tonne to four million tonne, at a cost of about US$3.7bn (Rs16,650 crore).

As per the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with the Orissa government in June this year, the company had said that the project would be set up in four modules of three million tonne each. According to the revised schedule, the project has been divided into three phases of equal capacity with the final capacity remaining unchanged at 12 million tonne per annum.

Of the four million tonne to be produced in the first phase, 1.5 million tonne would be slab and rest would be value-added hot-rolled steel products, as against three million tonne slab that was mentioned in the original MoU.

These slab and hot rolled steel would be used for export as well as domestic use. The first phase of construction is now expected to be completed by December 2010, six months later than the original date of June 2010. This delay will be owing to the increase in capacity and equipment changes, said Ho Chan Ryu, team leader Posco-India.

However, the final completion of Integrated Steel Works will be earlier than the original schedule of 2016, he added. Posco India's steel plant project is the largest foreign direct investment in India and is a significant part of the company's strategy to enhance its global competitiveness. The proposed investment is around $12bn (Rs51,000 crore).

Posco's Orissa project is expected to create about 48,000 jobs in the region and around 4,67,000 man years of employment during the construction phase. A total of $278.6 billion is the projected economic effect of the project, considering taxes and royalty incomes for the central government, as well as the Orrisa government.
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Gail lines up Rs.15000 crore of JVs in Orissa
Bhubaneswar: Gail (India) Ltd has decided to set up joint venture projects worth over Rs15,000 crore in Orissa, including a coal gassification plant, pipeline project, petrochemical complex and a power plant.

The company will invest Rs2,000 crore in converting coal into gas (surface coal gasification) at Talcher. The project, which will use Shell technology, will convert 4,400 tonne coal into gas per day, capable of feeding a 4,500-tonne urea plant. Alternatively, the gas can also be used to generate power, GAIL officials said.

Besides, the company plans to lay a Rs4,000 crore high pressure 1,140-km, pipeline from Kakinada and Haldia, feeding major towns such as Balasore, Bhadark, J K Road, Cuttack and Khurda in Orissa where a number of steel and other metal processing industries are due to come up.

The company also plans to implement city gas distribution projects in Orissa, supplying compressed natural gas (CNG) to automobiles and piped natural gas for domestic use in cities such as Cuttack and Bhubanewar.

Officials also said that as Gail was a partner and a preferred buyer of gas from the A-1 block in Myanmar, the company plans to ship the gas from A-1 in form of CNG in special ships to a suitable port in Orissa. The A-1 field has reported reserves of 4 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The company also proposes to set up a petrochemical complex in Orissa at an estimated investment of Rs6,000 crore. Officials said that apart from the pipeline project, the other three projects would have a set of partners. The company was also open to participation by foreign companies.
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Mankind Pharma to set up new manufacturing plant in Himachal Pradesh
New Delhi: Mankind Pharma, spurred by its record setting growth of 67% in the domestic pharmaceutical market last year, has announced its blueprint for future growth, which intends to catapult into the league of the top pharmaceutical companies in India.

The company has announced its plans for setting up two new state-of-the-art facilities for manufacturing and R&D operations; acquisition of the requisite skill set to target the formulations exports as well as contract research segments; while aggressively expanding its market share in the domestic pharma space.

The company plans to invest Rs75 crore over the next two years to support its expansion plans.

A new manufacturing plant according to USFDA standards is being set-up in Poanta Sahib, Himachal Pradesh over 12 acres of land. To be fully operational by June 2006, this would have a production capacity of 30 million ampoules and 12 million vials.

In another year, Mankind will set up a state-of-the-art R&D facility in the National Capital Region of Delhi. This facility would have the capabilities in the areas of Formulations development; new drug delivery systems; bio-equivalence studies; contract research and new drug discovery. This will set the ground for the company to enter the exports market with its wide portfolio of formulations and generics.

Initial target markets for Mankind would span semi-regulated markets of South East Asia, South Africa and former CIS countries.

Simultaneously, the company would continue to aggressively expand domestic sales through its existing divisions viz Mankind Pharma, Discovery Mankind, Lifestar, and launch of a new division by 2007. The company plans to enter new therapeutic segments like Asthma; Ophthalmic; Dermatology and Anti-malarial as part of its domestic expansion strategy.
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MAN-Force Motors JV to start operations next year
Pune: The Man AG -Force Motors (earlier Bajaj Tempo) joint venture will start production next year from the Pithampur facility of Force Motors.

Abhay Firodia, chairman and managing director, Force Motors, said the Pithampur facility has added a new facility exclusively for the joint venture, with an investment of Rs500 crore spread over the next three years.

The new facility would commence production from the first quarter of 2006 and would produce engines, cabs and vehicle assemblies. The facility will have a production capacity of 24,000 units per annum across all the products.

The joint venture in which Force Motors would have a 70 per cent stake has earmarked an investment of Rs700 crore for expansion purposes.

Man AG would have a 30 per cent stake in the 150 million-euro (US$180mn) venture.
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ITC Foods' 'Kitchens of India' gets a sweet taste
New Delhi: ITC's Ready-to-Eat (RTE) brand "Kitchens of India" has launched three Indian desserts.

According to a company statement, research showed that consumers are looking for desserts to complete the meal. "We are constantly looking to cater to the pan-Indian palate, which has been one of the primary drivers for the success of our Ready to Eat range."
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REL to float global tenders for Dadri, Shahapur power projects
Mumbai: Reliance Energy (REL) will float global tenders for EPC contracts before Christmas for its upcoming power projects in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh and Shahapur in Maharashtra.
Both projects are expected to go online by December 2008, sources said.

REL is planning to expand the capacity of the project from 3,740 MW to 5,500 MW entailing an additional investment of Rs3,500 crore. The total investment in the project has now been pegged at Rs12,000 crore.

The natural gas for the project would be sourced from Reliance Industries Ltd' gas fields in the Krishna-Godavari basin.

The project is expected to cater to the huge demand-supply gap in northern parts of the country. This area is facing a power crisis with power deficit likely to exceed to 8,000 MW in next four years.
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SCI and ONGC mulls JV for oil production and exploration
Mumbai: Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) may form a joint venture with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for supplying and managing offshore vessels for assisting their oil production and exploration activities. However, the PSU has yet to take a decision in this regard.

ONGC has drawn up a Rs4,000 crore investment plan for replacing its ageing offshore vessels in two phases to facilitate oil production and exploration activities by 2009. The oil company said it wants to maintain a 60:40 ratio in owning and chartering the fleet.

ONGC has a fleet of 61 offshore supply vessels (OSVs) and anchor-handling tugs (ATHs), of which 31 are owned and 30 chartered while it owns two multi-support vessel (MSVs) with one under charter. It also has a fleet of 24 jack-up rigs (16 under charter) and six drill ships (four under charter).
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Glaxo in pacts with Japanese companies
Mumbai: Glaxo SmithKline Pharmaceuticals India (GSK India) is planning to sign pacts with two more Japanese companies for marketing their drugs in India.

At the moment it is signing a co-promotion pact with Japanese pharma major Eisai Pharma to market an anti-ulcer drug in the country. GSK India is currently marketing Paritec, a new generation anti-ulcer drug in India.

The new marketing pacts are likely to be signed in the first quarter of 2006.

The company's present market strategy is in line with the changing demographics, which has altered the earlier tropical nature of disease profile in India, and the current scenario towards lifestyle drugs in cardiovascular, psychiatry, neurology, gynecology, and diabetology segments more in line with the western countries.

Augmentin is GSK's No.1 power brand and the other leading brands are Vozet and Cetzine. The company also now enjoys leadership position in vaccines and the therapeutic segments of dermatology, corticosteroids and thyroid.
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H-P reviews staff security systems
Bangalore: Clarifying its stand on the murder of its employee Pratibha Srikantamurthy Hewlett Packard has said, "As per our existing security process, the HP Transport Desk receives a call from the regular cab driver informing them that the employee has boarded a replacement cab. This information is logged in as is the procedure. The key task of the HP Transport Desk is to provide regular and timely availability of transport to all employees."

The release also said that in this case there was no alarm raised by the driver on any misconduct nor any indication of an untoward incident was given to the HP Transport Desk. Hence no escalation was raised to the employee's immediate supervisor.

The company says it has a process where misbehaviour of the drivers is logged in describing the nature and seriousness of offence. "As per our records, the company has not received any such complaints for the accused from our employees. Given the nature of the industry, there is between 15-20 per cent of absenteeism. An occurrence of an employee not reporting uninformed is taken as no show and does not trigger alarm," according to the statement.

However, the company was currently conducting an exhaustive security review to make the system as fool-proof as possible, the company said.
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Novo Nordisk awards contract to TCS
Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has received a clinical trial data management contract from Danish pharmaceutical major Novo Nordisk and has also initiated discussion for similar contracts from global pharma majors.

As per the agreement TCS will conduct offshore clinical operation services for Novo Nordisk in India and offer a slew of data management services. While the size of the deal could not be ascertained, industry sources said this could be a multi-million dollar deal over a period of time, as the global outsourcing of clinical trial management is estimated at around US$1bn over the next five-year period.

TCS plans to implement offshore clinical operations services from its Mumbai centre and offer a slew of data management services, such as designing, capturing and coding of trial-data, gathered by Novo Nordisk from across the world.
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ICFAI holds Convocation 2005
Hyderabad: 2,430 students were given their charters, medals and awards during the convocation of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI) held in Hyderabad recently.

172 students received the chartered financial analyst (CFA) charters taking the total CFA charter-holders to 2,482. At the convocation, 1,717 students of the ICFAI Business School (IBS) received their MBA certificates.

This took the total number of management graduates from the IBS to 7,504. Another 545 students who have successfully completed various other programmes also received their respective qualifying certificates.
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Shasun seen in deal for European R&D co.
New Delhi: Shasun Chemicals and Drugs is reported to be in advanced negotiations to acquire a pharma company in Europe. Sources familiar with the development said the target company is into R&D-based formulation products.

Shasun is believed to be negotiating the deal through a merchant bank.

Sources said the move is part of Shasun's plans to aggressively grow its newly- commenced formulations business. The company recently struck two partnership deals - one with Alpharma and the other with Glenmark, to develop and manufacture a range of formulation products.

Its deal with Alpharma covers 22 products, mainly in the cardiovascular and nervous system.
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