India NTPC to price $300 mln bond on Thurs-source

HONG KONG, Feb 23 (Reuters) India's largest power producer, National Thermal Power Corp. (NTPC), is set to price a 0 million bond on Thursday at a spread of 140 to 145 basis points above 10-year U.S. Treasuries, a market source said.

The 10-year offer will be the first dollar bond issue from India this year.

The source said the deal had attracted .5 billion of orders and NTPC was likely to sell the bonds at the tight end of a revised indicative yield range.

NTPC on Wednesday lowered the yield guidance from an initial 145 to 155 basis points over Treasuries.

Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank are joint bookrunners for the proposed bond issue, which is rated BB-plus by Standard&Poor's.

S&P said proceeds from the sale would be used to fund NTPC's capital expansion plans in the power sector. The debt offer is part of NTPC's newly set up billion medium term note programme.

A source has said the offer would be the first international bond issue from India with at least a 10-year maturity since Tata Electric sold a 20-year bond in 1997.

NTPC last tapped the offshore bond market in March 2004, when it sold 0 million in seven-year bonds.

Last year, Indian borrowers raised about 0 million worth of dollar bonds.

REUTERS PDS VP0735