Naturol Bioenergy ties up with Belgium firm for biodiesel plant
Hyderabad: Naturol Bioenergy has tied up with Belgium-based engineering firm, De Smet Ballestra group for its integrated biodiesel plant. The agreement includes Ballestra setting up the plant in Kakinada along with necessary technology transfer.

The company is also also exploring the feasibility of setting up some other bio diesel plants in India and overseas partnering with Bellestra said Bhaskar Chalasani, managing director and CEO, Naturol Bioenergy. The company is considering locations like Vizag, Thailand and Sri Lanka for the plants.

Ballestra has set up 20 biodiesel plants in Europe. The company has been present in India for the last 20 years. The Rs 140-crore project being set up would cater exclusively for the export market and likely to be operational by January 2007.
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IDFC Private Equity II raises Rs.1,900-cr
Mumbai: IDFC Private Equity has raised Rs1,900 crore ($430 million) with its second fund - IDFC Private Equity Fund II - for investing in infrastructure development projects. IDFC Private Equity Fund II has foreign investors including Japan-based Mizuho and KFW. The company has identified seven areas for investments - power, oil and gas, transportation, telecom, urban and rural infrastructure and miscellaneous areas like healthcare and education.

The company's client portfolio includes GMR Energy, Gujarat State Petroleum, Hotel Leela-Ventures, Chalet Hotels, Gujarat Pipavav Port and Delhi International Airport.
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Petroleum prices may be frozen
New Delhi: The price that petroleum products companies pay for petrol is likely to be frozen at the April levels to hedge against price hikes. If prices continue to rise, the public sector oil marketing companies will gain as they will have to pay lower prices. However, if prices fall, the companies lose money.

Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation executives met last week in Mumbai to discuss the issue.

Companies like Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and Reliance sell retail products through their marketing arms. Private players, including Reliance, sell some of their products to public sector marketing companies to take advantage of their huge network.

If petrol prices rise it may put pressure on Reliance Industries to give a discount over the applicable import parity price.

Till now Reliance has not agreed to sell its products to oil marketing companies at a discount.

Sources said even last year, Reliance agreed to give discounts of Rs 750 crore only in July. RIL was to supply 1.13 million tonnes of kerosene and oil to the marketing companies during 2005-06. Last year too, the public sector oil marketing companies had frozen prices in March.
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BHEL to tie up for nuclear energy this fiscal
New Delhi: Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) may enter into a tie-up in technology for manufacturing advanced nuclear sets by July-end. Siemens India may be a front-runner since BHEL already has a technical tie-up in place for nuclear technology with the German engineering major, a senior company executive said.

Bhel, which currently supplies equipment of up to 500 MW capacity to Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) for its projects, has been in talks with French firm Alstom, US power major GE Energy, Russian company LMZ and Siemens for possible tie-ups to enhance its nuclear capabilities.

Bhel wants to tie-up the technology for manufacturing equipment for 700 MW and 1,000 MW capacities and is hopeful of having an arrangement in place by the end of July. The company has an earlier tie-up with Siemens for nuclear technology and is trying to operationalalise it for the bigger sets. However executives said a lot depends on the outcome of the Indo-US nuclear deal and the German Government's stance on Indian civilian nuclear programme.

In the wake of the new Indo-US civil nuclear deal, NPCIL estimates the country could add 20,000-40,000 MW of nuclear power generation capacity over the next 10 years or so if several more players, including private sector companies, enter the sector. The country's nuclear power generation capacity, currently pegged at 3,310 MW, forms less than 3 per cent of the country's total installed generation capacity of about 1,20,000 MW. Thermal power meets 70 per cent of India's requirements, while hydro contributes about 24 per cent at present.
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Kuwaiti group upbeat on India
Hyderabad: The $1-billion Alghanim Group, based in Kuwait is bullish on the Indian market and is evaluating plans to expand here according to its chief executive officer, Omar Kutayba Alghanim.
The group has interests in automotive, manufacturing, retail, financial services, consumer products and others world over and in India it is mainly present in the segment of pre-engineered steel building (PEB) solutions and thermal and acoustic solutions.

The company is considering the option of setting up greenfield manufacturing units acquiring existing facilities. Within the country, the company is bullish on Hyderabad for setting up its headquarters.

Alghanim Group, which employs over 4,000 people in 34 different countries around the world, has 500 people working for its Rs 300-crore Indian company - Kirby Building Systems India - at Hyderabad.

Kirby India, which offers PEB solutions, has embarked upon an expansion involving an investment of $20 million. The company is aiming at a turnover of Rs 500 crore and double the workforce to 1,000 by the current fiscal-end.
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AIPL to double production by year-end
New Delhi: Alpla Indian Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between Austria-based Alpla Group and Yodeva Plastics Pvt Ltd, in which the former has 74 per cent stake, plans to double its bottle production to 10 lakh per day by this year-end and would set up four more units in the country in the next three years.

The company has launched a unit at Baddi which would help double its production capacity by this year end. The company has made an initial investment of $5 million (about Rs 20 crore) in the plant at Baddi and would invest similar amounts to set up more facilities in the country to cater its clients.
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Companies in race for setting up private transmission lines
New Delhi: State-run transmission company, Power Grid Corporation of India, which invited bids for setting up independent grid lines associated with western region strengthening scheme in November last year, will select a private company by June this year so as to complete the two projects by 2009.

Corporates that are in the race for building India's first fully independent private power transmission lines in Gujarat and Maharashtra at an estimated investment of Rs 1,500 crore include Tata Power, Reliance, Essar Power, Larsen & Toubro, GMR group, Kalptaru Power, Gammon India and Jyothi Structures, China Light & Power and four Spanish companies including Isolex Wat and Abengoa are in the fray for these projects.

Another pre-bid conference will be held on April 18 and the bids would be opened in June this year. One project is for building sub-stations and grid lines in southern Maharashtra at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore, while the other will be set up in Gujarat at an investment of about Rs 500 crore. PGCIL has so far formed joint ventures to build some grid lines. In fact, the only joint venture in transmission operational at present is between PGCIL and Tata Power to evacuate power from Tala hydroelectric project in Bhutan.
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Crawford & Co. forms joint venture with Puri Anuj & Associates
Mumbai: Global insurance claim settlement firm Crawford & Company has formed a joint venture with Puri Anuj & Associates for providing claim settlement and loss adjustment solutions. The joint venture, Puri Crawford & Associates India Pvt Ltd (PCA) will introduce and implement international practice standards and provide technology for the claims settlement and loss adjustment business, the firm said in a release here on Thursday.
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Oberoi group proposes to run luxury train
New Delhi: The Oberoi Group of Hotels has sent a proposal to the ministry of railways to 'own and run' an eight coach, 24-cabin luxury train in Rajasthan, through Agra and Delhi.

Railways officials said if the train is finalised it would be another milestone in 'public-private-partnership' project of Indian Railways in the sector.

The State already has world famous 'Palace on Wheels' under its feet and recently the State Tourism has decided to launch another luxury train to attract more and more tourists for its historic picturesque sites. The project's future lies with the IRCTC, a Public Sector Undertaking of Indian Railways, which would be funding the ministry's share in the project.
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