Bids for 750 mw Rewa solar tender may break Rs 4 per unit barrier
Solar power tariffs are expected to fall substantially below Rs 4 per unit in the bids for 750 mw Rewa solar project anticipates Bridge to India. Tariff of Rs 4 per unit is the lowest till now for any utility scale project in India. According to the solar sector analysis firm, bids for the proposed and much delayed 750 MW solar power tender in the Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh are expected to be submitted early next week. The project is being tendered by Rewa Ultra Mega Solar (RUMS), a joint venture between Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and the Madhya Pradesh government. Developers can bid for three project units of 250 MW each in a solar park being developed by RUMS. Price bids are expected to break the Rs 4 per unit tariff barrier because the tender offers large scale and enhanced bankability because power generated will be sold to Madhya Pradesh utilities and Delhi Metro Rail on an open access basis. The projects is also expected to benefit from state government payment guarantee and deemed generation compensation for grid unavailability thus significantly improving their risk profile particularly in comparison to other state government tendered projects. “There are three unique features of this tender, which has been designed by the Madhya Pradesh government with assistance from International Finance Corporation (IFC) – inter-state open access sale of about 25% of power output to Delhi Metro Rail, a state government offtake payment guarantee and deemed generation compensation for grid unavailability. All these features are being adopted for the first time in a public solar procurement tender in India and may provide a template for future,” said Jasmeet Khurana, associate director – from Bridge to India. According to Khurana the overall risk profile for Rewa tender is amongst the best in India and similar to projects tendered by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), which received the lowest-ever tariff bid in India of Rs 4.34 per unit for a 70 MW project in Rajasthan in January 2016. Since then, module prices have declined by about 28%. Bidding interest in the tender seems strong with likely participants including SoftBank, Adani, ReNew Power, Enel, Engie, AES, FRV, Essel Infra, Azure Power and Hero Future Energies amongst others said a Bridge to India statement. Looking at all these factors, Bridge to India expects tariffs to fall substantially below the Rs 4.00 per unit mark, especially as there is a 5 paise annual escalation in tariffs for 15 years and the tender provides 18 months for execution in a phased manner. The Rewa tender addresses two of the most critical risks for solar project developers in India – offtake and grid availability. If the tender results are as competitive as expected, it would provide a template for other states for solar power procurement. Buster Skrine Womens Jersey
India poised for huge growth in solar energy: Piyush Goyal
India is poised for huge growth in solar energy and it won’t stop at the 100GW solar power target to be achieved by 2022, Power Minister Piyush Goyal has said. “The 100 gigawatt target for solar should not be a constraint. India won’t stop at 100 GW,” Goyal said addressing the first India-specific session at a conference in Abu Dhabi. “With the advent of new technology in storage, we are poised for huge growth. Solar growth will support landowners to derive income and solar industry to build their business,” he said as per a statement issued today by industry body Ficci which has organised the World Future Energy Summit from January 15-18. Goyal said: “With the advent of new technology in storage, we are poised for huge growth. Solar growth will support landowners to derive income and solar industry to build their business.” The minster was of the view that India should manufacture in India for India and should assess what it would take for the country to be an end-to-end solution provider for solar energy. “We can manufacture at scale. A subsidy regime is not the best way to move forward. We need to draw up a regime where government can be an enabler for manufacturing to compete at good quality and prices,” Goyal said. He added: “We need to foster partnerships with high quality technology suppliers. We will provide large tracts of land to manufacture at scale. Indian developers should also promote Indian manufacturing.” Matt Calvert Jersey
No returning to subsidies on petrol, diesel: Government
The government today ruled out reverting to the system of subsidising auto fuel but said it may resort to cut in excise duties if rate hike “pinches hard” even as there has been Rs 5.21 per litre hike in petrol price and Rs 4.45 in diesel rates since December. “There will be no subsidy regime in petrol and diesel,” Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said. “Petrol price was deregulated in June 2010 and diesel in October 2014 and the same will continue.” The surge in international oil prices has led to petrol prices being hiked for the fourth time since December and thrice in case of diesel. Petrol price was hiked by 42 paisa and diesel by Rs 1.03 a litre (excluding local levies), effective last midnight. Petrol in Delhi now costs Rs 71.14 a litre as against Rs 65.93 in end November. Similarly, diesel rates have gone up from Rs 54.57 a litre to Rs 59.02. “There will be no going back to subsidisation. Subsidies are anti-poor. Subsidy should be given only to needy persons and not to people who can afford,” he said, indicating that auto fuels are being mostly consumed by people who can afford them. Asked if the government will look at cutting excise duty, he said no developed country had passed on the entire slump in global oil prices that began in second half of 2014 to take crude to more than a decade low, to consumers. Even oil producing nations like Saudi Arabia and UAE used it as an opportunity to cut subsidies, he said, adding that India raised excise duty to take away part of the gain arising from slump in global oil prices then. “We passed on 50 per cent of the benefit of oil prices slump to consumers and the rest 50 per cent we recouped by way of raising excise duty. This additional revenue was used to fund infrastructure and social projects,” he said. When oil prices slumped in the second half of 2014 and early 2015, the government hiked excise duty on petrol and diesel nine times to mop up additional revenues that helped it meet its revenue and fiscal deficit targets. In all, it raised excise duty on petrol by Rs 11.77 a litre and that on diesel by Rs 13.47. But global oil prices have been moving up since oil cartel OPEC last month agreed to cut output for the first time in eight years. India, which depends on imports to meet 80 per cent of its oil needs, will have to spend Rs 9,126 crore (USD 1.36 billion) more every year for one dollar per barrel increase in crude oil. Besides, the rising crude oil trajectory impacts inflation and growth. India spent USD 63.96 billion on crude oil import in 2015-16, about half of USD 112.7 billion outgo in the previous fiscal and USD 143 billion in 2013-14. For the current fiscal, the import bill has been pegged at USD 66 billion at an average import price of USD 48 per barrel. International oil prices currently are trading above USD 52 per barrel. Every rupee per litre increase in petrol price leads to 0.02 per cent rise in WPI inflation and 0.07 per cent for the same amount of increase in diesel rates. Nathan Noel Authentic Jersey
UAE beats India as top exporter of petroleum to Kenya
India has lost ground to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as Kenya’s top supplier of petroleum amid a shrinking oil import bill linked to lower global prices. Kenya’s fuel imports from New Delhi shrunk to Sh51.3 billion in the first 10 months of last year, from Sh89.1 billion in a similar period of 2015, representing a 42 per cent drop or a cutback of Sh37.8 billion. Over the period, petroleum imports from UAE jumped 18 per cent to Sh58.1 billion in the review period, overtaking India as the single largest supplier of fuel consumed in Kenya, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data shows. The Middle East nation has made a comeback on Kenya’s top import table for petroleum, having lost the position to India after the closure of Kenya’s only refinery in Mombasa in 2013. Kenya now imports all of its refined products with the defunct refinery turned into a storage facility. The country’s petroleum import bill narrowed by Sh30 billion to Sh167.8 billion in the year to October 2016, despite a sharp rise in consumption, official data shows. This was helped by lower global prices which are, however, on the rebound following a recent pact by oil producers to cut production. India had in recent years ramped up oil supply to Kenya on the strength of Gulf Africa Petroleum Corporation’s (Gapco) operations in Kenya, which is 76 per cent owned by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. Gapco is now set to be acquired by French firm Total. The firm has been Kenya’s largest oil importer for the past three years under the open tenders system (OTS) floated by the Ministry of Energy. Under OTS, one marketer buys oil consignment in bulk to supply the rest of the industry, entitling the country to huge discounts. The system also made it possible for the energy regulator to introduce maximum price controls at the pump in December 2010, to cushion consumers from cartels in the industry. The KNBS data shows that Kenya took in Sh34.7 billion worth of petroleum from Saudi Arabia in the year to October 2016, up from Sh25 billion a year earlier, making the Arab nation the third supplier of Nairobi’s fuel needs. Bahrain comes in fourth with Sh4.2 billion worth of supplies, followed by Oman (Sh4.1 billion) and Sh3 billion for Netherlands. The UAE was once Kenya’s top exporter of goods, mainly oil, but lost the pole position to India in 2012, which has since been overtaken by the bullish China. The KNBS data shows that Abu Dhabi is now the third seller of goods to Nairobi at Sh79.6 billion in the year to October 2016, behind India (Sh170 billion) and China (Sh275 billion). Gilbert Perreault Womens Jersey
HPCL in talks with six foreign suppliers for gas at LNG terminal
Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) is in talks with six foreign suppliers to source liquefied natural gas (LNG) for its Rs 54 billion LNG terminal coming up at the Chhara Port in Gujarat. The company also plans to enter the spot LNG market this year, said two officials aware of the development. HPCL has an equal joint venture agreement with Shapoorji Pallonji Port Pvt. Ltd to build the 5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) LNG terminal at Chhara Port. The terminal is expected to be commissioned by 2019. “HPCL is in dialogue with at least six parties internationally to source gas for the Chhara LNG terminal that it will complete by 2019. Currently, it is studying the segments and catchment areas where it can market its gas,” said the first of the two people mentioned above, speaking on the condition of anonymity as he is not allowed to speak to the media. Stephen Hauschka Jersey
India’s oil consumption to outpace China’s this year, Platts Analytics
Oil consumption in India is likely to increase by 7-8% this year, overtaking the demand growth in China for the third year in a row, as the demonetisation impact is expected to be for a short-term, according to Platts. The demand for LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) and transport fuels will increase, while demand for naphtha will get a boost due to new petrochemical projects. “For the third year in a row, India’s oil demand growth will outpace China’s demand growth,” Platts Analytics said in a note, while adding that it was likely to rise at around 7% to 4.13 million barrels a day in 2017 as compared with 3% in China’s oil demand to 11.5 million barrels a day. The cash crunch after the move of demonetisation is likely to dampen temporarily the country’s consumption for oil products in the first 3-month period or maybe a slight longer period, it said. “Whereas the growth fundamentals for oil demand in India continue to be high, slow growth in the starting months of this year due to demonetisation may dampen the overall growth of oil demand in 2017 to a little below of 2016 levels of 9%,” it said. “The dramatic increase in oil demand in India highlights no faltering signs. The country will continue to be a driver of growth in Asia in 2017, Platts said. Indian government’s drive for clean fuel, sharp expected growth in demand for transport and air travel, and the insatiable rise in petrochemicals will serve as a driver for petrol, LPG, jet fuel and naphtha, supporting oil products to reach close to double-digit growth this year, equivalent to the growth seen in 2016, if not higher. Diesel demand is likely to increase by around 4.5-5% in 2017, a little lower than the levels in 2016, as demonetisation had impacted the rural incomes. The demand for LPG is likely to grow by around 10.5% year-on-year in 2017, as compared to the estimated 11% in 2016. However, the demand for naphtha is likely to witness a double-digit growth. Juan Lagares Authentic Jersey
HPCL to restart crude unit at Vizag refinery in 2-3 days – Chairman
Hindustan Petroleum Corp will restart a 36,000 barrels per day crude unit at its Vizag refinery in 2-3 days, its chairman M. K. Surana said on Monday. HPCL had shut the crude unit at 166,000 bpd southern Indian plant last Friday following a minor fire in its crude unit due to a pipeline leak, the company spokesman said on Saturday. Remaining units at the refinery were operating normally, the spokesman had said. Chase Utley Authentic Jersey
India fuel consumption to hit 200 million tonnes in 2016/17 – Oil Ministry
India’s fuel consumption is likely to hit 200 million tonnes in 2016/17, an oil ministry executive said on Monday, in what would be the highest such level in at least 16 years. “Demand for petroleum products is increasing as the economy grows. India has the best growth amongst the large economies in the world … we have massive hunger for petroleum products,” said oil ministry Additional Secretary A K Sawhney. India’s fuel consumption surged 10.9 percent to 183.5 million tonnes in 2015/16. A level of 200 million tons would compare to almost 1 billion tonnes in U.S. fuel consumption and to around 575 million tonnes of demand in China. Kansas City Chiefs Womens Jersey