ONGC awards Tripura power project to BHEL

Agartala, Jun 25: After three years of uncertainty, the ONGC Tripura Power Company Pvt Ltd (OTPC) has issued a Notice of Award to state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) for setting up 726.6 MW capacity Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) based power project in Palatana of South Tripura.

ONGC officials said here today that the initiative, lead promoter of OTPC with 50 per cent equity participation, was expected to transform the power scenario of entire North-Eastern region and catalyse rapid economic development of the region. The generation project combined with linked transmission project and upstream gas supply project is slated to bring in investments of over Rs 9,000 crore, in the region through OTPC, a Joint Venture initiative of the ONGC with Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) and Tripura government.

The project, with its fuel-efficient advanced class CCGT units, will cater to increasing power appetite of NE states, officials said.

The OTPC and BHEL had drawn up an ambitious plan of completing the project by March, 2012, which requires speedy finalisation of allocation of power to NE states by the Union Ministry of Power and respective states signing Power off-take agreements with OTPC within first week of July, 2008.

The power from the project would be distributed to the entire NE region through a transmission network to be developed through another Joint Venture Company of OTPC - Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) - and NE states with investment of approx and Rs 1,750 crore with active support of the Union Ministry of Power.

The officials also stated that ONGC was also gearing to embark on fast-track exploration and development of gas resources, over the years, at a projected investment of about Rs 4,375 crore for supply of gas to the power project and other consumers in the region.

The Letter of Award follows a bidding process where two bidders - internationally acclaimed Alstom and BHEL-GE combine - had participated and the priced commercials offers of the two bidders were opened on June 12 and evaluated, leading to this award to the L-1 bidder, following the approval of the OTPC Board, in its meeting held on June 23.

The total value of this contract for the generation project is Rs 2,207 crore and the first unit of 360 MW would be installed in 42 months, followed by the second unit within three more months, ONGC sources said.

Besides generation, the project includes transmission of the power, for which an independent Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) - a joint venture between PGCIL, OTPC and NE region beneficiaries - would develop a transmission system, to hook Palatana with the national grid at Bongaigaon at the cost of Rs 1,800 crore.

UNI