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Tata Steel & West Bengal Industrial Development
Corporate (WBIDC) have decided to setup a joint venture company which will be known as the
Hooghly Met Coke & Power Co Ltd (HMCPCL). The joint venture company, which will be
formed and registered shortly, proposes to set up a Merchant Coke Oven Plant at Haldia
adopting heat recovery (HR) route with a capacity of 0.8 million tonnes of Coke annually at
the completion of phase-one.
 A formal Shareholders Agreement to this effect between WBIDC
& Tata Steel was signed by Mr. B. Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel & Mr.
Gopal Krishna, Managing Director, WBIDC in Kolkata in the presence of Hon’ble Chief
Minister of West Bengal Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Mr. Nirupam Sen, Hon’ble
Minister-in-Charge of Commerce & Industry and Chairman of WBIDC, Mr. Ratan Tata,
Chairman, Tata Sons and Dr. T. Mukherjee, Dy.Managing Director (Steel), Tata Steel.
Mr. Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons commented “We believe in the
leadership of the State of West Bengal, that has spearheaded many reforms and encouraging
investments to come in. West Bengal has tremendous potential which is yet to be fully
explored”.
Speaking on the occasion, Shri Buddhadev Bhattcharjee, Hon’ble Chief
Minister of West Bengal said, “The Tata Group is very positive about our State. They
are coming in a big way and investing in other areas like power, automobile as well as
Cancer Research Institute. I thank Ratan N Tata for giving us much importance and taking
West Bengal in their fold”.
HMCPC Limited will also generate 60 MW of electricity by utilizing the
sensible heat of the hot flue gas from the Coke Ovens. The power generated by this company
will be sold to the West Bengal State Electricity Board. A separate tripartite MOA for a
Power Purchase Agreement was also executed by Dr. T. Mukherjee, Dy. Managing Director
(Steel), Tata Steel, Mr. Gopal Krishna, Managing Director, WBIDC and Mr. Malay Dey,
Chairman, West Bengal State Electricity Board in the presence of Hon’ble Chief
Minister of West Bengal Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Mr Mrinal Banerjee, Hon’ble
Minister for Power, Mr Nirupam Sen, Hon’ble Minister-in-Charge of Commerce &
Industry and Chairman of WBIDC and Mr Ratan Tata, Chairman – Tata Sons.
The order for the machinery and equipment is expected to be placed over
the year 2005. The first phase of the project is expected to be commissioned within 24
months. The total land requirement for the project would be around 200 acres.
The project is intended for supplying of high quality metallurgical coke
to the international as well as to the domestic customers. It will also cater to the
requirement of Tata Steel. Considering the necessity of producing world class low ash
metallurgical coke, the entire coking coal requirement will be imported from countries
such as Australia, Canada, CIS countries, New Zealand, USA, Poland and Indonesia.
The envisaged cost of phase one of the project that is 0.8 MT of coke and
60 MW of power is around Rs.700 cores, which is proposed to be funded through a mix of
debt & equity. The equity partners, as indicated are Tata Steel and the West Bengal
Industrial Development Corporation. |
