SCCL achieves fin closure for 1,200 Mw thermal power unit

The public sector Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) has achieved financial closure for 1200 mw pit-head thermal power project, to be set up in Adilabad district, with the entire debt component of Rs 4,000 crore coming from the Power Finance Corporation(PFC).

The company will raise the equity of Rs 1,900 crore from internal accruals and partly through additional commercial borrowings, according to S Narsing Rao, chairman and Managing director of SCCL.

With the completion of the financial closure the company is confident of completing the project by March 2014. SCCL is negotiating with BHEL for supply and erection of the two super critical thermal units. “The company is well positioned in terms of raising the equity capital as it has cash reserves of Rs 1,000 crore as on March 31, 2010”, Rao said.

The company had originally envisaged 500 Mw project, mostly for captive purposes, by extracting coal from the abandoned underground mines at Ramakrishnapuram, but later scaled up the project size to two units of 600 Mw each. The power project requires 4.6 million tonnes of coal a year while the reserves in the abandoned coal mines is estimated to be around 170 million tonnes.

SCCL is planning to use 150 Mw of the total installed capacity of this project for captive purposes while giving the remaining 1,050 Mw to state power utilities. A draft power purchase agreement to be entered with APTransco is under preparation, Rao said.