Bharat Forge enters joint venture with Alstom

New Delhi: Bharat Forge and Alstom will form two joint venture companies for manufacturing equipment for power sector.

One of the two joint ventures will take up manufacturing of core turbines and generators. Alstom will hold a majority stake of 51 per cent in this company, while Bharat Forge will hold 49 per cent.

The second joint venture will be engaged in manufacturing the auxiliary units of the power plants. In this company the equity holding structure would be reversed and Bharat Forge will hold majority 51 per cent stake, while Alstom will be the minority partner with 49 per cent holding.

The Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Forge, Mr Baba Kalyani, told reporters here that “two locations have been identified, one in Gujarat and the other in Andhra Pradesh. But final decision is yet to be taken.”

“We would be finalising soon. We would certainly be going for a coastal location because this sort of project involves a lot of imports,” he said.

Mr Kalyani said the company has not yet worked out the details of the investments needed for the new projects.

“We are working on the financial details. But the target is to have the first turbo generator delivered from our plant before the end of 2012,” he said and added that it will take three years from the foundation laying of the project till it makes its first generator.

A press release issued by Bharat Forge said the joint venture would design, engineer and manufacture turbines and generators of 600-800 MW supercritical range with a total installed capacity of 5,000 MW. The partners had also agreed to explore manufacture of turbines and generators in sub-critical range as well for gas and nuclear applications.

Alstom has an existing relationship with the public sector BHEL for making super-critical boilers.

With the Indian power sector throwing up opportunities for super-critical technology, other multi-national companies such as Mitsubishi, through a tie up with Larsen & Toubro Ltd, and Toshiba with JSW have announced plans for making super-critical equipment in the country.