RPower eyes Rs 5,000-cr loans

NEW DELHI: The Anil Dhirubha Ambani group’s Reliance Power will finalise loans of Rs 5,000 crore ($1.1 billion) with Chinese banks for its 4,000 mw Sasan power project during the visit of the country’s Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday, industry officials said.

Bank of China, China Development Bank and the Export Import Bank of China along with Standard Chartered Bank, which arranged the loans, have finalized the term loans after Reliance Power signed a memorandum of understanding in Shanghai last October for loans amounting to Rs 56,000 crore for various projects it is executing.

With the finalisation of 13-year debt, Reliance Power has secured Chinese commitment for the Sasan Project on a longterm basis, ensuring support from Chinese equipment suppliers during operations & maintenance of the Project, industry officials said.

The loans will support import of power equipment from the Shanghai Electric Group Company Limited. In October this year, Reliance Power and Shanghai Electric Group Company Ltd ( SEC) had signed agreements for supply of 660 mw Boiler-Turbine-Generators , the main power equipment, for their Ultra Mega projects.

With the deal, the total value of orders placed by Reliance Power with the Chinese entity went up to about $10 billion for a coal-fired generation capacity of 30,000 mw, or about a fifth of India’s total capacity
Reliance Power is implementing power projects with aggregate capacity of over 37,000 mw, the estimated cost of the Sasan project in Madhya Pradesh is about Rs 20,000 crore ($4.3 billion ), which is being financed on a debt, equity ratio of 70:30.