The Hindu Business Line : BHEL's Tiruchi unit to look for ancillaries in North

BHARAT Heavy Electricals Ltd's Tiruchi unit, which produces boilers for power plants, wants to look for ancillaries in northern India, the unit's head and Executive Director, Dr V. Gopalakrishnan, told Business Line recently.

He, however, said that units in the North were not yet able to match prices of the Tiruchi units. But BHEL Tiruchi finds the saving in logistics costs and transportation time inviting. The company has set a record by completing the 120-MW Jojobera plant (for Tata Power Ltd) in 24 months. This has raised expectations from customers of quicker deliveries.

Also, thanks to growth in the power sector, BHEL expects its workload to increase from two lakh tonnes of steel last year to 7.5 lakh tonnes by 2011-12.

While plant capacity would be raised only marginally, "massive outsourcing" and on-site fabrication are two routes BHEL would take to achieve the higher workload, Dr Gopalakrishnan said.

Packed orders: Often, the basic raw material, steel, has to be shipped from one of the SAIL plants all the way to Tiruchi and finished products all the way back if the customer is from the North. For example, recently, BHEL received an order from Jindals for the 4x250 MW plant in Raipur. The two-way transportation raises costs and cycle time.

Moreover, Tiruchi ancillaries have their hands full, not only with orders from BHEL, but also from other boiler manufacturers such as Ansaldo, Cethar and Thermax and from the windmills industry. Tiruchi is turning out to be the hub of windmill tower manufacturing. Last year, around 700 towers — about half the country's production — were made in Tiruchi.

It is understood from other sources in BHEL that the company toyed with an idea of putting up a greenfield boiler unit in the North, but has more or less given up the idea.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page