NLC India Odisha power plant project finds BHEL as only bidder after L&T backs out

NLC India

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) has emerged as the only bidder for NLC India's ultra-supercritical thermal power plant project at Talabira, Odisha, NLC India Chairman and Managing Director Prasanna Kumar Motupalli confirmed to Moneycontrol.

"Initially, two parties - L&T-MHI and BHEL - had participated in the bidding process. But finally, in the price bid only BHEL participated. We are not aware of any specific reason for L&T backing out. So, we have received the bid submissions of BHEL and we are evaluating the same. We will place the order for the project by this month itself," Motupalli said.

NLC India's Talabira ultra-supercritical thermal power plant project is of 3,200 MW and comprises two stages: Stage-I is of three units of 800 MW each, while Stage-II is of one unit of 800 MW. It is for Stage-I that BHEL has emerged as the single bidder. For Stage-II, Motupalli said the company will float another tender.

In a stock exchange filing on January 1, BHEL stated that the company had submitted a price bid for the mentioned NLC order, which is an activity in the normal course of business. "Submission of bid does not result into automatic bagging of an order, therefore, is not required to be

informed under Regulation 30 of the SEBI Listing Regulations, 2015," BHEL said in its filing.

A senior official from NLCIL said, requesting anonymity, that the company is planning to organise the foundation laying ceremony of the Talabira utlra-supercritical thermal power plant in a month or two. For that, the central public sector undertaking is in touch with the Prime Minister's Office for PM Narendra Modi to grace the occasion.

According to Motupalli, the power tariffs offered by the proposed Talabira power plant will be "very competitive" since it will be a pithead station. NLC India has its coal mine at Talabira which will cut transportation costs.

The plant is to come up at 890 acres of land in Talabira, of which NLC India has so far acquired 400 acres. The remaining, the CMD said, would be acquired within this calendar year.

NLC India, primarily a lignite and coal mining company under the Ministry of Coal, has an installed power generation capacity of 6 GW. Of this, 4.6 GW is through coal or lignite-fired power generation and the remaining 1.4 GW is renewables. By 2030, NLC India aims to be a company with a power generation capacity of 17 GW.

Like NLC India, other companies of the Ministry of Coal such as Coal India Limited (CIL) are diversifying their business to also include power generation in their portfolios, including both thermal and renewables.