RPL to export power from Jamnagar SEZ

Tag : bad power supply

Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL) has sought permission from the Centreto export surplus power generated from its Jamnagar SEZ and sell itin the domestic tariff area (DTA). The captive power plant is beingset up to supply electricity to one of the world's largestrefineries coming up at Jamnagar.
According to senior officials in the Union commerce ministry, RPLplans to set up a 660 megawatt (mw) power plant to meet the energyneeds of its 5,80,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery and apolypropylene plant, apart from a unit by Reliance Pharma, whichwill manufacturer generic drugs.
Reliance Jamnagar refinery will cost half that of others
Government sources said that trials have already begun in some ofthe SEZ's units and, initially, one of the six 110 mw gas turbineswould start generating power, soon. However, in the initial stages,the company would be using less than half the power it produces.
According to a senior government official, the company had soughtpermission in advance a few months ago, to supply around 60-70 mwpower outside the SEZ. However, the Centre is yet to come up withclear guidelines in this regard. The official said there areseveral issues involved regarding the duty to be imposed, sincesupplying power into DTA would amount to exports and the rawmaterials used would also be duty free. Hence, the process ofevolving a clear framework has taken time. Despite severalattempts, Reliance officials failed to revert back to emailedqueries in this regard.
The refinery and polypropylene plants are being built at the SEZ byRPL, while the power plant is being set up by another Reliancegroup company, Reliance Utilities and Power Ltd (RUPL). The totalSEZ project is worth nearly Rs27,000 crore. The proposed refineryboasts of Nelson complexity of 14. Nelson complexity is a scalethat measures the ability of a refinery to process various kinds ofcrude oil, including the cheap, bad ones.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), the parent company, already runs theworld's third largest refinery in Jamnagar, which is near the newproject. Including the existing refinery at Jamnagar, the entirerefinery complex will have a total processing capacity of 1.24million bpd.
RPL, jointly promoted by Reliance Industries (RIL) and ChevronCorp, has mandated a consortium of six international banks to raise$500 million.
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On Tuesday, RPL in a filing with the BSE, stated that it hadachieved 94% overall progress, with rapid advancement on allimplementation fronts of its complex refinery coming up in theJamnagar SEZ. The refinery is expected to go on steam in September.