India to power biz talks with Kazakhstan

NEW DELHI. March 3. KAZINFORM With demand shrinking in the West, Indian industry is looking at Central Asia for a stimulus, with a little help from Kazakhstan. Junior industry minister Ashwini Kumar on Wednesday will build on the recent oil and uranium deals with Central Asia's biggest economy to lay groundwork for joint ventures in power, textiles, pharmaceuticals, food processing, fertilisers and infotech.

Kumar will lead executives from state-owned generation utility NTPC and other pertinent entities in their search for possible Kazakh partners for setting up ventures in that country. Seeds of such talks were sown during Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev's visit as the Republic Day guest. India offered its expertise in manufacturing to help Kazakhstan expand its industrial base. On his part, Nazarbayev invited Indian companies and wanted the two sides to explore joint ventures. After oil, power has the biggest possibility. TOI first reported on January 27 Nazarbayev's invitation to NTPC to look at setting up new coal-fired power plants and renovate existing ones in that country. The talks will also explore if NTPC can get assured coal supplies as part of any deal. The NTPC executives were part of an energy delegation that called on Nazarbayev on Saturday evening after Kazakh national oil firm Kazmunaigas signed a heads of agreement assigning 25% stake in the highly prospective Caspian acreage of Satpayev to ONGC-Mittal Energy Ltd, steel tycoon Laxmi Mittal's joint venture with the overseas investment arm of flagship explorer ONGC. The Indian firm has the option of raising the stake by 10% once oil was discovered. Admittedly, it's still early days. But Kazakhstan offers vast scope for Indian power utilities in new projects and modernising existing ones besides implementing pollution control measures. Kazakhstan is estimated to account for around 5% of Central and Eastern European regional power generation by 2012 and is exporting some electricity to Russia and looking at China. These efforts are, however, hamstrung by old plants and rickety distribution networks besides limitations in capacity, Kazinform refers to the Times of India. Copyright © 2009 Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved. For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service