Adani Power exploring options to sustain Mundra power plant

Company mulling slump sale to a subsidiary; option of realigning power purchase agreement kept open

The Adani Power Limited’s (APL) board meeting on June 6 would contemplate on measures to help sustain the 4,620-MW imported coal-based power plant in Mundra, Gujarat.

While the board would consider a slump sale to a subsidiary, as per its notice on BSE, stakeholders are learnt to be looking at other options of realigning the power purchase agreement(PPA).

Supreme Court had in April, disallowed any grounds of relief to Tata Power and Adani Power Mundra in the five-year-old contentious issue of compensation due to unforeseen increase in imported coal prices for their respective power plants.

Adani Power was expecting a compensatory relief of Rs 3,000 crore. Adani Power could also face a huge earning write off as its revenues already include the likely inflows of compensatory tariff, estimated at about Rs 9,000 crore.

“As part of a restructuring exercise, APL wants to separate its investment activity from the generating asset.  It has, therefore, proposed to transfer the Mundra plant to a separate subsidiary by way of slump sale subject to the aprroval of the ADL Board and other authorities, and retain the investments in subsidiaries with itself,” spokesperson of Adani Power said in an e-mail response.

The reply also added that the company has also engaged with stakeholders, including the Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (GUVNL), for “possible remedial measures for long-term sustainability", besides exploring various options for the Mundra plant.

In the BSE notice dated June 1, APL said: “Board of Directors of the Company is scheduled to be held on June 6, 2017 to consider and evaluate, among others, the slump sale of its Mundra power generating business undertaking to its subsidiary company, namely, Adani Power (Mundra) Limited.”

Sources in the know said the stakeholders might also be looking at scrapping the current PPA. “The PPA with the power distribution companies can be scrapped and bank guarantee of the power supplier- Adani- can be taken over by the discoms,” said a person close to the developments of the company.

APL in its reply has, however, ruled out any stake sale of the plant to any other company or stakeholder.