Apseb Seeks Intl Partner For 500mw Vizag Project

The Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board is scouting for an international partner to ground the 500 mw thermal power project it is planning with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) at Visakhapatnam.

HPCL will hold a 26 per cent stake in the project, while the Board will hold 24.5 per cent. The rest will be subscribed to by financial institutions and the international partner.

Board chairman J Parthasarathy told mediapersons here yesterday that they will soon be inviting bids from international majors. The global partner will be offered a stake of up to 24 per cent and the project will be jointly managed by the Board and HPCL. Parthasarathy said this would probably be the last generating unit to be funded by the Board. The private sector will take over thereafter.

On the major private sector projects, he said the last hitch on the revised power purchase agreement (PPA) between the Board and Hinduja National Power Corporation for the 1040 mw thermal plant at Visakhapatnam has been sorted out.

The Hindujas were sorting out issues like coal supply and wagon movement with the concerned ministries. These have been sorted out to a large extent, Parthasarathy said and hoped the PPA will be signed very soon.

With regard to BPLs proposed 500 mw thermal power plant at Ramagundam, the project had received techno-economic clearance and further steps were underway.

The detailed project report of the 500 mw Krishnapatnam-I, awarded to US-based BBI, has been vetted by the Board and sent to the Central Power Authority (CEA).

GVK Industries has submitted the detailed project report of the 500 mw Krishnapatnam-II project and the same was being scrutinised by the Board before sending it to the CEA.

All the three above mentioned power projects would have a capital cost of around Rs 4.2 crore per mw of installed capacity.

He said the six developers, who have been issued licenses to set up short gestation period power stations of 1,700 mw total capacity, have signed the fuel linkage agreement and the PPA and were working towards financial closure.

On the mini power projects, he said only six of the 31 private parties approved had completed preliminaries like fuel linkage.