With Africa all set to make handsome
investments in power projects in the coming years, the Indian
Power Transmission Companies are planning to spread their wings
to the continent to bag multi-million dollar transmission contracts.
Close to the heels of Africa, the Middle East has also emerged as
another destination offering golden prospects for the Indian Power
companies. Both the countries plan to spend about USD20 billion
in the coming four years on power transmission and distribution
infrastructure.
A handful of major Indian conglomerates have bagged exclusive
orders for a whopping amount over $ 400 million from the two regions
in the year 2007 itself. However, Indian players in the concerned
field are likely to win the orders of much higher value, says
sources.
Kalpataru Power Transmission Ltd, a leading Indian company
in the design, testing, fabrication, erection and construction of
transmission lines, has already bagged contracts over $50 million
in Qatar, Algeria, Zambia, and another $100 million worth contracts
are in the development phase. This giant conglomerate is expecting
another major contract over $35 million from a Northeast African
company.
Likewise, KEC International Ltd, one
of the leading Power Transmission EPC companies in the world today
has an order book of $665 million. Of this, orders worth over
$530 million are from Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia. About
8- per cent of the total orders have come from international market
and 20 per cent of the orders belong to domestic market.
Middle East countries are looking forward to carve a niche in
power infrastructure before their oil reserves dry. For that reason,
they are looking forward to make investments in a big way and
create an outstanding potential which will serve them for the
next 30 years, says Shreeram Phanse, Dy General Manager, Corporate
Monitoring, at KEC Ltd.
