Westinghouse to invest "tens of millions of dollars" in India

MUMBAI: US-based nuclear equiment maker Westinghouse Electric Company is likely to invest "tens of millions of dollars" in India, which has caught global biggies' eye following the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.

"We will invest tens of millions of dollars as a minimum to tap India's nuclear power sector," WEC's Director (Global Business Development) Robert Pearce told reporters here.

Pearce said that WEC, which belongs to Toshiba Group, might look at forging joint venture with local players, sourcing from them and even outright acquisitions in areas like engineering, construction and equipment making.

"We are in talks with the local players, but nothing has been finalised yet," he said adding that the company would focus on "as much as localisation as possible" for its business here in line with other global markets including China.

WEC offers a wide range of nuclear plant products and services to utilities throughout the world, including fuel, service and maintainance, instrumentation and control and advanced nuclear plant designs.

Its technology is the basis for well over 40 per cent of the world's operating nuclear power plants, including 60 per cent of those in the United States.

WEC has already inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the domestic engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) to build 1,000 MW pressurised nuclear power plants in India.