Coimbatore race on L&T's Supercritical Boiler Plant
The supercritical boiler plant of the L&T-Mitsubishi joint venture is likely to come up either in Tamil Nadu or Gujarat. The sites under consideration in Tamil Nadu are near Coimbatore and Chennai, Mr Y.M. Deosthalee, Director and Chief Financial Officer, L&T, told on Friday.
Asked how a new plant would be competitive against established players such as BHEL, who also have an advantage of scale, Mr Deosthalee said that `economies of scale' was only one aspect of costing. More important was the technology factor, especially in hi-tech areas such as supercritical boilers. Mr Deosthalee said that L&T would soon make an announcement about a tie-up for technology for manufacturing turbines.
Answering a question, he said that L&T, which has just made a foray into shipbuilding, would also get into production of oil rigs.Noting that manufacturing oil rigs was a lot more complex than making ships, Mr Deosthalee said that L&T might have a technical tie up for that purpose. He said the company could get into production of rigs between six months and one year from now. He indicated that the rigs might be produced at Oman, where L&T has a joint venture (between its wholly-owned subsidiary, L&T International FZE, and The Muscat Trading Co). Another area that L&T is keen on entering is railways. The company will soon appoint a consultant to look into areas to get into. The possible areas include production of rakes and locomotives, undertaking projects on BOT basis and metro rails. Mr Deosthalee almost ruled out manufacture of operating signalling systems.
Asked whether L&T's next ship building yard (after Hazira, Gujarat) will come up at Ennore, near Chennai, Mr Deosthalee said that there were "reasonable chances" for that. In the aviation sector, L&T in February signed a MoU with Boeing for "joint exploration of business opportunities". The two companies were examining the opportunities. He counted providing design services and manufacture of parts among the possible areas, but ruled out getting into MRO activities.
