NTPC panel for resumption of Dabhol operations

Committee held its first meeting today to discuss early repayment of dues by the MahaViataran which procures 95% power from project

NTPC, which holds 32.68 per cent equity in Ratnagiri Gas & Power (RGPPL), has set up a committee to look into the issues faced by the Ratnagiri (formerly Dabhol) project.

The project remains closed since July 15 for want of gas. The committee is chaired by former chief secretary of Maharashtra and the company's independent director Ajit Nimbalkar. Other members include former Central Bank of India chairman and managing director Homai A Daruwala, former bureaucrat of the Madhya Pradesh cadre Prashant Mehta and RGPPL’s managing director R K Srivastav.

The committee held its first meeting on Wednesday to discuss the restoration of gas supply and an early repayment of dues by MahaViataran, which procures 95 per cent power from the project.

The early restart of power generation and the subsequent recovery of tariff from MahaVitaran is necessary to avoid the entire project being declared a non-performing asset by the lenders. The company’s debt is about Rs 9,000 crore..

A committee member, who did not want to be identified, told Business Standard "Lack of gas allocation, non availability of funds due to lack of payment of dues by MahaVitaran are quite serious issues. Besides, RGPPL is not able to service its debt and lenders have warned that the project may turn non performing asset.

RGPPL today made a presentation on sourcing of gas from other sources including spot market. We will further discuss these issues and make our recommendation to the board of NTPC at its meeting slated for end of October.''

As reported by BS, RGPPL needs a total of 8.5 million standard cubic meter per day (mmscmd) of gas to achieve 1,967 MW of generation. Of the 8.5 mmscmd, nearly 7.6 mmscmd is linked to KG-D6 gas while 0.9 mmscmd is from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation through GAIL India.

RGPPL has incurred a loss of Rs 1,156 crore towards fixed cost alone during 2012-13 as there was a total generation loss of 9,053 million units. RGPPL's generation loss in 2011-12 was 3,095 million units.