Tata Power may commission first unit of Mundra project by Sept

Tata Power is all set to commission the first 800-Mw unit of India’s first ultra mega power project at Mundra in Gujarat by September 2011.

Coastal Gujarat Power Ltd, the special purpose vehicle implementing the 4,000-Mw (5x800-Mw) project, had completed 65 per cent of the work, the country’s largest private sector power utility said in a recent analyst presentation. About 11,000 people are working on the site to meet the deadlines.

Erection of boiler pressure parts for the final three units and work on chimneys and 400-Kv switch yard are proceeding as per schedule. Structural fabrication of external coal handling system is 85 per cent complete, but requires diversion of a village road to complete the remaining work. Coal jetty with ship unloading facilities is expected to be ready this month.

Distributed control system switch on and boiler hydro testing of the second unit were successfully completed in September. Work is in progress on the 400-Kv power evacuation lines and efforts are on to obtain the required right of way in time for one of the sections of the line.

Tight project timelines for transmission and generation commissioning and smooth coordination across multiple vendors on site will be crucial to the project progress, said Tata Power.

After the commissioning of the first unit in September, the company hoped to commission the remaining four units at an interval of every four months, said Tata Power.

Out of the total project cost of Rs 17,000 crore, Tata Power had invested Rs 5,816 crore as debt and Rs 2,937 crore as equity investment till the second quarter of 2010-11. The project is funded on a 75:25 debt-to-equity ratio by a consortium of banks, including State Bank of India, International Finance Corporation, Asian Development Bank, KEIC and K-Exim.

The imported coal-based project requires 11-12 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) coal and Tata Power has off-take agreements for about 10.11 mtpa with KPC and Arutmin mines of Bumi resources, in which the company had picked up stakes a few years ago. The company is also scouting for additional mines in Australia, Mozambique and South Africa.

Tata Power has also floated a shipping subsidiary, Trust Energy Resources, with base in Singapore for owning ships to meet shipping requirements and trading in fuels. Another subsidiary, Energy Eastern, was also floated for chartering of ships. It is estimated that the Mundra project will require eight vessels to ship coal. The company has purchased two Korean-build vessels scheduled for delivery by 2011 and has already chartered three vessels to import coal from Indonesia.