The Tiruchi-based power equipment manufacturer, Cethar Vessels, has signed a memorandum of understanding with OJSC Power Machines of Russia for setting up a joint venture company in India for manufacturing turbines and generators for power plants.
The company will produce turbines and steam generators of 350-800 MW capacities. It will have an annual production capacity of about 3,000 MW. OJSC Power Machines would have at least 51 per cent stake in the joint venture, said K. Subburaj, Chairman, Cethar Vessels, and Igor Y. Kostin, General Director, OJSC Power Machines, here on Wednesday. A high-level management team from OJSC Power Machines was on a visit to inspect the Cethar Vessels unit here.
The MoU was signed three weeks ago. The joint venture company would be set up at an investment of about Rs. 750-800 crore. The new unit was expected to go into production in two years.
Describing the joint venture as a strategic project, Mr. Kostin said though this was Power Machines' first joint venture in India, the company was not new to the country, having supplied equipment for several projects, including the Koodankulam power project.
Cethar Vessels had taken up an expansion programme to augment its boiler manufacturing capacity from 8,000 MW to 12,000 MW by March 2011. “We have already invested about Rs. 600 crore and will invest another Rs. 150 crore,” Mr. Subburaj said.
The joint venture would help Cethar Vessels to get EPC contracts in a big way and it would also bid for global projects as a consortium, he said. The company had already acquired the technology for the manufacture of supercritical boilers.
