Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Mar 18, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Mar 18, 2005 |
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Industry & Economy
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Coal PTC to offer coal intermediation services N. Ramakrishnan
Chennai , March 17 PTC India Ltd (formerly Power Trading Corporation of India Ltd) will shortly begin offering coal intermediation services. That is, it will buy coal from various sources, including from overseas markets, and offer it to coal-based power projects. "We have done a lot of homework during the last three-four months on this and now have a broad idea of what people (State electricity boards) here want," Mr Tantra Narayan Thakur, Chairman and Managing Director, PTC India Ltd, told Business Line here today. The company hoped to launch this service within three months. He said that some utilities had approached PTC highlighting their problems in getting coal and it was this that had prompted the company to get into intermediation of coal, especially imported coal. PTC had studied the market abroad, particularly in China and Indonesia, and had identified sources from which coal could be bought. "We are now confident that we will be able to offer coal to consumers here at competitive prices," he said. This is how PTC will offer its services. It will get in touch with coal suppliers in China or Indonesia, get quotes from them and offer them to State electricity boards. The SEBs will buy coal from PTC and pay for the coal purchased. PTC, in turn, will pay the company from which it bought the coal, according to Mr Thakur. PTC would collect a margin — for trading in power, PTC charges a margin of two per cent — from the buyer. Mr Thakur said PTC was working on building this kind of expertise for gas too and would be in a position to offer a similar service to gas-based power projects after some time. It was now studying the gas market, where prices were at present volatile, to understand the dynamics better. In Chennai Mr Thakur met the Chairman and Managing Director of Ennore Port Ltd, Mr M. Raman, to learn about the potential for a liquefied natural gas terminal at Ennore and the prospects for selling gas in the region. He did not think that offering such services would dilute PTC's role. Its mandate was to catalyse development of the power sector and services like coal intermediation would go a long way in that. Mr Thakur said PTC was studying a number of power generation projects to acquire equity stakes in them. It had picked up an 11 per cent stake in a 300 MW project in Chhattisgarh and was evaluating some other projects. Only when this was finalised, would its funds requirement be known. In the next six months, PTC would have an idea of how much money it would require and then decide on how to raise these funds.
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