Chinese firm inks deal with Adani, to invest $300 million in Gujarat
India’s Adani Group inked a deal with East Hope Group, one of China’s largest companies, which will invest over $300 million to set up a manufacturing unit for solar power generation equipment in Gujarat. “The MoU signed between the two leading companies from India and China proposes to set up manufacturing units in Mundra SEZ, Gujarat to produce solar power generation equipment, chemicals, aluminum and animal feed, and to put in place East Hope Group’s engineering and industrial integration chain to recycle and economise the product cost at Mundra SEZ,” said a statement. An estimated investment of more than $300 million is expected to be made by East Hope Group in India, as part of the proposed cooperation between the two conglomerates. East Hope Group, a 70 billion yuan company, is one of the largest corporate houses in China. Headquartered in Shanghai, it is among the top 10 aluminium producers in the world, having 150 subsidiaries. Lane Taylor Jersey
Govt advises RINL to foray into renewable energy, reduce dependence on fossil fuels
Union Minister of Power, New & Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal has advised RINL to make a foray into solar and renewable energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate thermal power. Goyal, who is also the minister for Coal and Mines said the government will provide necessary support and incentive to industries which will come forward to set up solar power plants in the country. The minister, who was on his maiden visit to RINL-VSP, also assured full support to RINL in allocation of coal blocks. With expansion in steelmaking capacity, raw material security is one of RINL’s top most priorities. The steel major does not have access to captive iron ore mines which makes its input costs higher. It has thus been betting big on getting access to iron ore from the Kukunoor iron ore mines. Incidentally, with production capacity going up to 6.3 million tonne post expansion, RINL’s iron ore requirement is estimated to go up to around 10 million tonne per annum. Later, the minister visited major production units of the Plant including the Blast Furnace-3, Steel Melt Shop-2. He was accompanied by P Madhusudan, chairman, RINL and other senior officials including, P C Mohapatra, Director (Projects), P Raychaudhury, Director (Commercial) and K C Das, Director (Personnel). Mallex Smith Authentic Jersey
Major bureaucratic reshuffle; renewable energy secretary Rajeev Kapoor moved to petrochem department
n a major bureaucratic reshuffle effected today, as many as 17 bureaucrats were assigned new secretary-level portfolios at various ministries. New and Renewable Power secretary Rajeev Kapoor has been moved to Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals as secretary and has been replaced by Anand Kumar, Managing Director, National Highways Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited. Ajay Kumar Bhalla, Director General Foreign Trade has been appointed as secretary, Ministry of Power as the current secretary PK Pujari will retire at the end of this month. Ajay Prakash Sawhney, additional secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has been appointed as Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. He is replacing Aruna Sundararajan who has been given the charge of secretary, Department of Telecommunications. Rajeev Gauba will replace Rajiv Mehrishi as Home Secretary from September 1 when the latter retires. Gauba will be replaced by Durga Shankar Mishra as Secretary of Ministry of Urban Development. NK Sinha, Secretary in Ministry of Culture, has been made secretary in Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He will replace Ajay Mittal who has been given charge of Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training. Ravi Kant, additional secretary, Department of Defence has been made secretary in Ministry of Shipping while Subhash C Garg, Executive Director, World Bank, has been given charge of Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs. Yudhvir Singh Mallik, Chairman, National Highways Authority of India, will now be the Secretary in Road Transport and Highways Ministry. He will be replaced by Deepak Kumar who is currently the director general of Employees State Insurance Corporation. Arun Kumar Panda, Additional Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare, will now be the secretary in Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises while Avinash K Srivastarva will replace Jagdish Prasad Meena as Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing Industries. Mario Addison Womens Jersey
845 Megawatt capacity solar power plants installed across India: NTPC
The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) of India has recently revealed that India now hosts solar power capacity worth 845 MW, after the recent addition of the 225 MW Mandsaur Solar Power Project- a 250 MW solar farm located in Madhya Pradesh. The remaining 25 MW will be commissioned as soon as evacuation constraints pertaining to the solar park developer Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Limited are eradicated; PV Magazine quoted the Mercom Capital Group, as reporting. Apart from this, Vikram Solar, BHEL and Tata Power also have 50 MW plants currently operating on the site. Solar power is being increasingly promoted as an alternative source of energy, the latest one being the installation of solar panels on the rooftop of all Kochi Metro Rail stations. Apart from this, the Delhi Metro is also enabled with solar PV, and is set to further expand the capacity. Mumbai is also considering the creation of a rooftop solar network to be incorporated with the Central Railways. Korbinian Holzer Jersey
Ahead of Modi visit, US announces $7.5 million to advance India’s power grid
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, the Trump administration said today it will spend $7.5 million to help advance India’s power grid, as part of the two countries’ commitments to ensuring access to affordable and reliable energy. The Ministry of Science and Technology and industry will match the commitment of US’ Department of Energy, bringing the total commitment to $30 million, officials here said. “This new consortium demonstrates the US and Indian commitments to ensuring access to affordable and reliable energy in both countries,” Energy Secretary Rick Perry said. “We know that continued grid innovation will promote economic growth and energy security in the United States and India,” he said. The initiative, part of America’s commitment to fostering the reliable, resilient and secure delivery of electricity, was needed for the strong US national security, economic growth and global leadership, as well as furthering Department of Energy (DOE)’s collaboration with India under the US-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE), officials said. The US-India collaboration for smart distribution system with storage (UI-ASSIST) was selected as the new consortia for Smart Grid and Energy Storage under the US-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC), the DOE said in a statement. To help pave the way to a more advanced distribution grid that will allow greater use of distributed energy resources such as microgrids and energy storage, the new consortia will bring together experts from academia, DOE’s national laboratories and industry, it said. Together with their counterparts in India, the center will conduct research and deploy new smart grid and energy storage technologies that will modernise the grids of both the nations to make them “smarter”, while increasing resilience and reliability, the DOE said. Through JCERDC, the US’ world class installations and national laboratories will contribute their expertise and capabilities as India expands energy access to its remote areas, improves its grid reliability and resilience, and strengthens its energy security. The US participants will gain insight from India’s grid modernisation efforts – a potential export market for US equipment worth billions of dollars – and promote researcher access to India’s grid operational experience, it said. UI-ASSIST’s US team, led by Washington State University, is comprised of MIT, Texas A&M University, University of Hawaii, Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Snohomish County (WA) Public Utility District, Avista, Burns and McDonnell, ETAP Operation Technology, ALSTOM Grid/GE Grid Solutions, Clean Energy Storage, ABB, Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). The Indian team, led by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, includes partners from IIIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Roorkee, IIT Bhubaneshwar and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) New Delhi. Vernon Hargreaves III Womens Jersey
Indonesian firm interested in building crude oil refinery in Nigeria -NNPC
Indonesian engineering firm PT Intim Perkasa has expressed an interest in building a refinery in Nigeria, the West African country’s state oil company said on Wednesday. Nigeria has been seeking investment in the sector to reduce reliance on imported oil products that consume a large portion of the OPEC member’s scarce foreign currency reserves. Its existing, ageing refineries produce hardly any fuel after years of neglect. A representative of PT Intim Perkasa Nigeria Ltd, a subsidiary of the Indonesian company, indicated an interest in building a modular refinery in the southern Akwa Ibom state, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said in an emailed statement. It would have a refining capacity of 10,000 barrels per day,said NNPC spokesman Ndu Ughamadu in the statement. Nigeria currently has a refining capacity of 445,000 barrels per day (bpd). “We have embarked on an ambitious plan to fast-track programmes to restore our capacity utilization from 30 per cent to a minimum of 90 per cent in the next 24 months,” said Maikanti Baru, NNPC group managing director. “To do that, we are working on securing financing from third parties, not just funding, but also technical expertise,” headded. Kentrell Brice Womens Jersey
Iran starts gas exports to Iraq, Iranian official says in IRNA report
An Iranian oil official said Wednesday that Iran has begun exporting gas to Iraq, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Exports had started at approximately 7 million cubic metres per day and would eventually reach up to 35 million cubic metres per day, said Amir Hossein Zamaninia, the deputy oil minister for trade and international affairs, according to IRNA. Iran signed two contracts to export gas, to the Iraqi capital Baghdad and the southern Iraqi city of Basra, IRNA reported. Nail Yakupov Womens Jersey
Russian oil company Rosneft to sell petroleum in India
Rosneft, a Russian oil company, will enter retail petrol market of India, the country’s Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Sunday. According to the official, in the past fiscal year, Rosneft invested about $13 billion in a local oil refining company Essar. “I the near future, we expect the closing of an acquisition of Essar Oil Ltd oil refinery by the international consortium headed by Rosneft, which also owns a network of 2,700 gas stations across India. Deregulation of pricing in the retail market of India has opened up the prospect of efficient growth in retail sales. The company plans a significant expansion of the network”, a representative from Rosneft told Life TV Channel. Terry Sawchuk Authentic Jersey
Cairn Energy expands hunt for oil and gas to Mexico
CAIRN Energy is moving into frontier exploration territory off Mexico as the oil and gas firm looks to repeat the success it has enjoyed off Senegal. Edinburgh-based Cairn was awarded interests in two big chunks of acreage off Mexico in what was only the second licencing round completed by the country. The awards will allow Cairn to continue with a strategy which involves focusing its exploration effort in areas where there has been relatively little drilling. Chief executive Simon Thomson said: “We are delighted with these awards which we believe provide an exciting opportunity to build a strategic portfolio over time in this highly prolific yet under-explored region.” While Mexico is rich in oil and gas the country’s waters have seen little activity by international standards. State-owned Pemex had a monopoly on oil and gas production until the country decided in 2014 to open the market to private investment. Mexico completed its first licensing round only last year, after deciding it needed to attract international expertise to help make the most of its resources. The decision to award Cairn the shallow water licences in the southern Gulf of Mexico provides a vote of confidence in the firm on the part of the country’s government. The round attracted interest from a range of majors including Total and Royal Dutch Shell. Cairn is partnering Italian giant Eni and Mexican exploration and production firm Citla on one of the licences it won. It is operating one of the licences, with Citla as its partner. The companies beat Eni in the bidding for that licence. Cairn said it expects drilling to start on both licences in the 2019-20 period. The move into Mexico comes after Cairn burnished its credentials as an explorer by making two big finds off Senegal in 2014. There had been little activity off the country, which is now attracting interest from giants. Since taking charge in 2011, Mr Thomson has built a portfolio that combines potentially transformational exploration in frontier areas with lower risk development activity in the North Sea. Cairn achieved renown by making bumper finds in India under founder Sir Bill Gammell. On Monday Cairn said India’s authorities want to stop the firm getting $104 million dividends due to it pending resolution of a tax dispute. Brett Hundley Authentic Jersey
BPCL seeks 70,000 tons petrol to plug supply gap
Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd is seeking gasoline in a rare move, due to a scheduled, month-long shutdown of a crude unit and a continuous catalytic reformer (CCR), sources said on Wednesday. BPCL will shut a 100,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) crude unit for a month from July 29 and the CCR from August 6 at its 190,000-bpd Kochi refinery in Southern India, sources with knowledge of the plan said. The state-owned refiner is seeking 70,000 tonnes of 91.5-octane gasoline with a maximum 0.004 percent sulphur content in two equal lots for Aug. 8-10 and Aug. 20-22 arrival at Kochi, a tender document showed. It has an option to buy an extra 35,000 tonnes for Sept. 3-7 arrival at the same port through the same tender which closes on June 29, with offers to stay valid until July 3. BPCL’s unusual move to seek petrol came at a time when India’s top refiner Indian Oil Corp plans extensive maintenance work at its key refineries. Nate Gerry Authentic Jersey