Essar Projects eyes 3-fold rise in third-party contracts

MUMBAI: Essar Projects, India's second largest engineering and construction company by order book, expects a recent power-technology licensing pact to triple its share of third-party contracts.

The company, a part of the steel-to-shipping Essar Group, has an order book of $6 billion comprised mainly of mandates from affiliate companies. "Till now the break-up was 80:20. We now aim to have equal share of outside contracts in our order book," CEO Alwyn Bowden told ET.

Essar says its technology sourced from Foster Wheeler AG would allow coal-based generators to switch to different grades and categories of fuel without halting operations.

The 20-year agreement with the Geneva-based company provides Essar with a technology licence to sell utility-sized circulating fluidised-bed steam generators in India. These generators can use varying types of coal.

At present, a domestic coal shortage has forced generators to look at foreign coal. But most domestic power plants have to be retrofitted as they cannot use more than 15% of imported coal in their fuel mix.

Essar's technology does away with this need for retrofitting, which is very expensive. Power generators have been reeling from a critical coal shortage, with about 33 plants having only seven days of coal stocks.