BUSINESS LINE - Cethar Vessels to set up turbine unit
 
 
 
 
29/06/2007
 
 
 
 
S. Ganesan

Tiruchi, June 29

Cethar Vessels Ltd, the second largest boiler manufacturer in Tiruchi, would soon set up a turbine manufacturing unit under a joint venture, the company Chairman, Mr K. Subburaj, said here on Friday.

The deal with a foreign partner would be finalised soon and the turbine manufacturing unit would have an annual production capacity of 4,000 MW. The unit will come up at Tiruchi at an investment of over Rs 800 crore, he said speaking to newspersons on the sidelines of Enerdrive 2007, a workshop on energy equipment organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry here. He, however, declined to identify the foreign partner.

The company, a major supplier of small boilers till now, would embark on another collaborative venture in July to acquire capability to manufacture sub-critical boilers of 600 MW capacity.

Cethar Vessels targets a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore during this financial year and has already embarked on a modernisation programme to augment its power equipment manufacturing capacity to 8,000 MW from the current 5,000 MW per annum. The modernisation programme, taken up at an investment of Rs 420 crore, is to be completed by March 2008.

Power plants

The company plans to set up a 2 X 135-MW utility power plant at Vhile Bhagar, Raigad district in Maharashtra at an investment of Rs 1,100 crore. The power plant is expected to be commissioned by June 2009. The company currently has the capability to design, manufacture and erect 50 MW power plants and has so far commissioned nine such plants. Orders for about 15 other plants of similar capacity were under execution.

Cethar Vessels would also invest Rs 300 crore to set up a boiler auxiliaries manufacturing facility in Tiruchi by September 2008.

The company plans to go public with an initial public offer by the end of the current fiscal to mop up about Rs 1,000 crore to fund its expansion programmes, Mr Subburaj said.

It has also plans to enter the global engineering service market by setting up a separate division with 10,000 engineers.

A new corporate office of the company would come up in the outskirts of the city soon.