GMR Infra may expand Petronas agreement

Talks underway on sourcing gas, tapping global supply for other power projects.

GMR Infrastructure, the publicly held infrastructure developer based here, is understood to be working towards expanding its pact with Petronas, the Malaysian oil & gas major, for its power division.

The move would deepen GMR Infra’s ties with Malaysia. It has Malaysia Airports as an equity investor in all its four airport projects.

The airports and power divisions bring in close to 85 per cent of the Rs 6,000-crore annual revenue. GMR has four international airport assets under its management and 17 in power, four operational and 13 in various stages of implementation. These are expected to generate cumulatively 8,000 Mw in the near future.

STRENGTHENING RELATIONS

* The move would deepen GMR Infra’s ties with Malaysia

* GMR has Malaysia Airports as an equity investor in all its four airport projects

* In discussion with Petronas on diverse aspects, including getting the know-how of sourcing gas

As part of expanding the pact with state-owned Petronas, GMR is understood to be in discussion with the former on diverse aspects, including getting the know-how of sourcing gas and looking at tapping Petronas’ global supply for various projects. Petronas is the national oil and gas company of Malaysia and is wholly owned by the government of Malaysia. A fully integrated oil & gas company, it is engaged in a broad spectrum of upstream and downstream oil and gas and petrochemical operations, in a little over 30 countries.

“There are a whole lot of possibilities which will open up as we discuss with Petronas. Gas-fired power stations will be a major driver of power generation. Petronas has in-depth expertise in this and we plan to tap into that resource,” a senior official of GMR Infra told Business Standard. An official spokesperson, though, would not comment.

GMR Infra has two natural gas-fired power projects off the coast of Andhra Pradesh, cumulatively generating a little over 600 Mw, with gas sourced from the Krishna-Godavari basin.

This move to expand the pact with Petronas comes a couple of months after GMR Infra offloaded a 30 per cent stake in one of its power projects in Singapore to a subsidiary of Petronas. During late September, GMR Energy, a subsidiary of GMR Infra which is developing an 800 Mw combined cycle gas turbine power plant on Jurong Island, Singapore, offloaded the 30 per cent stake for a reported $115 million.

The power generating facilities, featuring Siemens’ latest F-class gas turbines, will be designed and constructed by a consortium consisting of Siemens and Samsung. Fuelled by re-gasified LNG souced from British Gas, the plant is scheduled for commercial operations in 2013. GMR Supply Singapore Pte Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of GMRE, holding an electricity retail licence in Singapore, will manage the business.

When signing the pact with Petronas to offload 30 per cent stake, G M Rao, chairman of the GMR Group, had said: “This relationship between GMR and Petronas opens up powerful synergy for both. It is symbolic of true South-South co-operation and its immense potential in the energy market in the region.”