Thaindian News

Mumbai, Sep 28 (IANS) Top private energy-generation firm Reliance Power Tuesday said it has successfully concluded India’s largest fundraising exercise by any company worth Rs.50,000 crore ($11.1 billion) to finance 10,000 MW worth of projects.
Addressing the company’s annual general meeting here, group chairman Anil Ambani said the money raised had helped financial closure for two ultra-mega power projects of 4,000 MW each - at Sasan in Madhya Pradesh and Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

“Our ambition is to achieve 25,000 MW of power generation by 2015,” Ambani told the well-attended meeting, adding that 5,000 MW of capacity will be achieved over the next 24 months and 20,000 MW in the three years after that.

Reliance Power, which currently produces 6,000 MW of power currently, has three of the four ultra-mega power projects awarded by the government. The other one being the 4,000 MW Tilaiya project in Jharkhand.

While domestic coal will support 20,000 MW of power generation, feed stock for another 10,000 MW would come from Indonesia.

The company also announced an outlay of Rs.10,000 crore (over $2 billion) for the 2,400 MW power project at Samalkot in Andhra Pradesh. The construction for this unit, which had already started, will be completed by 2012, the shareholders were told.

Ambani said the group’s programme also included 10,000 MW of gas-based power projects, with feedstock coming from the fields of Krishna-Godavari basin, off the Andhra Pradesh coast.

Besides 25,000 MW of thermal projects, which will make Reliance Power the largest power generation company in India, the aim was also for 3,000 MW of hydro power and 1,000 MW of wind energy by 2015.

The markets gave a thumbs up to the news. Reliance Power scrip gained 2.3 percent at Rs.173.50 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, soon after the chairman concluded his remarks.