An 800-million-dollar Turkish conglomerate, Fernas Construction, wants to get into the city gas distribution and road construction space in India. Fernas came into India as an EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) player in the oil and gas sector in 2009. It wants to make India its base to target the neighbouring South Asian market. The company's chief, Mr Ferhat Nasiroglu, shared his India plans and his views on doing business in India. Edited excerpts:

What prompted you to enter the Indian market?

India is a very big and developing market. We want to be part of the country's growth story. We have many Indians working with us in our projects in third countries in West Asia and Africa. They have encouraged us to explore opportunities here.

Our first project, through our Indian subsidiary, Fernas Construction India Pvt Ltd, was for GAIL (India). We have executed the Rs 450-crore Dahej-Vijaipur gas pipeline project.

We have also bagged two more EPC projects worth Rs 2,200 crore from Indian Oil Corporation and ONGC Petro Addition Ltd (OPaL).

What are the sectors you are evaluating? Do you want to confine your interest to the EPC space?

Our core experience is in the oil and gas business, cement and tourism. India is an attractive market for us in the energy and tourism space. Our investments in the country will depend on the opportunities we get. We are also bidding for the road projects, and evaluating the cement and power sectors.

What kind of openings are you looking at in the city gas distribution (CGD) business?

We would like to come into this sector as an operator. We already have experience in this sector in Ankara and Istanbul, in Turkey. In India, we can go it alone or in partnership with such companies as GAIL and GSPCL.

In fact, we would also like to invite them to be our partners in the Turkish market.

From whom will you source the gas for the CGD business?

In Turkey, we have a licence to import LNG or buy from some companies that sell gas. In India, we would like to buy gas from companies, but not import.

In the road construction sector, are you looking at EPC or BOT projects?

We are looking at the BOT (annuity) models as there are not many large EPC projects here. We have bid for highway projects since the last year.

We have a road portfolio in Turkey, based on the EPC model. The BOT (annuity) model of India does not exist in Turkey or West Asia, where we have done road projects. We have eight ongoing projects, totally valued at over $1 billion.

Do you find the highways market in India very competitive? Are you looking at bidding with partners?

There are enough opportunities. We want to go alone. We would be bidding for road projects worth Rs 1,000-2,000 crore. The space is competitive. In the bidding stage in India, we have been among the best three.

BOT (annuity) involves heavy financing costs. How do you propose to be competitive?

I agree that financing these kinds of projects involves high costs. But we can bring down the cost with the use of high technology as it reduces the project implementation time. Besides, we have our banker, who provides us with NOCs for debt financing.

You want to enter the power generation sector. What project capacity are you looking at?

The company is looking at gas-based power projects. We have met the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. We can do it on our own, or do EPCs project for big companies like Reliance. On our own, we are looking at small sized projects in the wind energy, hydro and solar sectors.

What kind of revenues do you expect from your India business?

Of the $800 million revenues (consolidated) of the Group, we expect our share from India to grow to 20-25 per cent from the current 10-12 per cent.

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