The Hindu Business Line : Naturol BioEnergy set to achieve financial closure by March

NATUROL BioEnergy Ltd (NBL), a joint venture between the Energea GmbH of Austria and FeClean Energy of France, is set to achieve financial closure by March, this year.

The promoters now want the Andhra Pradesh Government to allot land for the Rs 140-crore, 300-tonnes-per-day, integrated bio-diesel project.

According to the NBL Managing Director, Mr Bhaskar Chalasani, Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), after completing its due diligence of the project, had in-principle agreed to fund Rs 33 crore.

Similarly, Andhra Bank, State Bank of India, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development and Infrastructure Development and Finance Company have shown interest for debt financing of the project.

On the other hand, he stated, APIDC Venture Capital, AVIGO group of the United Arab Emirates and FE Clean Energy of US have evinced interest for equity participation.

NBL was in an advanced stage of discussions with AVIGO for equity participation. The company had also requested IDBI to lead the consortium of financial institutions for financial closure of the project.

In a press release here on Friday, Mr Chalasani said that a NBL delegation had called on the Chief Minister, Dr Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy. The Chief Minister assured the delegation that he would do the needful and directed the Secretary of Rain Shadow Area Development, Mr T. Vijaya Kumar, to pursue the matter of providing land to the company at Kakinada or Visakhapatnam by consulting the district collectors of East Godavari and Visakhapatnam.

NBL wants to ground the project by April, this year and commission operations in a span of 15 months.

Initially, the company was targeting to bring 1.2 lakh hectares of dry wastelands under bio-diesel plantations, the press release cited.

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