Rashtriya Ispat, NTPC venture for power unit

Hyderabad: Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd and National Thermal Power Corporation will form a 50:50 joint venture to set up a 150 MW gas-based, power unit in the former's campus. A memorandum of understanding to this effect will be signed next week.

Stating this, the Chairman and Managing Director of the Visakhapatnam-based RINL, Mr Y. Sivasagar Rao, told newspersons here on Monday that the total investment for the project would be about Rs 700 crore.

The power unit is expected to be fuelled by lean gases, which would be generated from the blast furnace and the project would take off by 2009. RINL is also foraying into renewable energy sources, which would account for 5 per cent of energy needs of the Corporation, he said.

Slag Cement plant


The RINL board has also cleared the proposal to set up a slag cement plant. The capacity of the plant would be 3 million tonnes and the investments are being worked out. 'We have asked for expression of intent and got 26 responses,' Mr Rao said.

In coal, RINL is looking at acquiring small assets with reserves. The company requires about three million tonnes of coking coal. Such mines are in West Virginia in the US and Queensland and New South Wales in Australia. 'We have got coking coal samples from a couple of companies and are analysing them,' said Mr P.K. Bishnoi, Director of Finance.

We expect the consultants appointed for the purpose to give a report in a week and will take a decision accordingly. About five parties in Australia and three in the US have been short-listed. Joint venture offers have been received from three already, he added.