ONGC, JSW Energy and Jaiprakash Power to see some action today

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), India’s biggest energy explorer, will invest Rs 10,600 crore in raising production from its western offshore fields. ONGC’s board has approved third phase of redevelopment of its prime Mumbai High South oil and gas field at a cost of Rs 6,069 crore and integrated development of Mukta, Bassein and Panna formations at an investment of Rs 4,620 crore. The Mumbai High South Redevelopment (Phase-III) will lead to incremental gain of 7.547 million tonne crude oil and 3.864 billion cubic meter gas by 2030. The project comprises drilling 36 new wells and 34 sidetrack wells, and facilities. The facilities under the project are scheduled to be installed by April, 2017. JSW Energy, controlled by billionaire Sajjan Jindal, has acquired two of Jaiprakash Power Ventures’ hydro power plants, with a combined capacity of 1,391 Mw, for Rs 9,700 crore. The board of directors of Jaiprakash Power Ventures, a fully owned subsidiary of the Jaypee group, has approved the 100 percent transfer of businesses of its operating power plants - the 300-Mw Baspa-II hydroelectric plant (commissioned in 2003) and the 1,091-Mw Karcham Wangtoo plant (commissioned in 2011), in Himachal Pradesh. Jaypee’s entire hydropower portfolio of three plants was up for sale. Earlier, Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance CleanGen had decided to buy Jaypee’s entire hydro portfolio but that deal had run into regulatory troubles. DLF, the country’s largest real estate company, plans to launch Real Estate Investment Trusts (Reits) in the next financial year. The aim is to monetize its commercial properties and it is in discussion for partnerships. Its net debt grew by Rs 817 crore during the second quarter of this financial year to Rs 19,944 crore. It also plans to raise Rs 3,600 crore through an issue of securities backed by commercial assets, to replace costlier debt. DLF earns about Rs 2,100 crore a year from its rental business, expected to grow to Rs 2,600-2,750 crore by March 2017. DLF is also readying a large CMBS (commercial mortgage-backed securities) offering of Rs 3,600 crore. Private airliner Jet Airways launched its maiden direct flight from Lucknow to Abu Dhabi, UAE. The company has deployed a Boeing 737 for the daily service. It will provide connectivity to North America, Africa, West Asia and the Gulf via Abu Dhabi. The base fare for the flight is Rs 11,300. The airline is confident to fly at over 90 percent load factor for the service. The company has trimmed its debt by 7% since the beginning of this fiscal year, even as it readies itself for more funding from its strategic partner Etihad Airways. The airline as of end September had total consolidated debt at Rs 9,794 crore on its books. Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals (OCPL), which has returned to net profit from a net loss of around Rs 200 crore during the last quarter, expects its capacity utilization to touch 100 percent by the next quarter, up from the present 60 percent. The pharmaceutical maker also expects revenues from its first-to-file products in the United States, to flow from the next fiscal. The company earlier was facing a working capital crunch, which had resulted in lower capacity utilization and had thereby affected profitability. However, with the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) package being implemented and a part of the sales deed used as working capital, the company was expecting improvement in revenues and profit. Apprehending an uncertain future for the company, some 40-odd SpiceJet pilots including commanders have quit the airline during the past six months. The airline auditors in their recent report have cast doubts over the ability of media baron Kalanithi Maran’s budget carrier to run it as a going concern. The quitting of these pilots have also impacted the airline’s operations significantly through delays and flight cancellations. The airline had last week reduced its fleet from 48 planes to 38 over the past few months. The airline has reported its fifth straight quarter of net losses for the July-September period, at Rs 310 crore, although it is down from the year-ago period when it had a net loss of Rs 559 crore. The losses came down as the airline witnessed a 15 percent growth in total revenue. Good Luck Steel Tubes is eyeing a turnover of Rs 1,800 crore by 2017-18 and plans to invest Rs 200 crore in the next three years towards setting up a new forging facility and enhancing capacity of its structural division. The work on two greenfield plants would start next year and both would commence production in a year’s time.  Post-expansion, forging division is expected to double its contribution to Rs 400 crore to the projected turnover of Rs 1,800 crore. Turnover from the structural division would also double to Rs 200 crore.  The company, which is now sitting on around Rs 160 crore reserves and surplus, plans to fund the proposed expansion with a 2:1 debt-equity ratio. G P Goenka group company Stone India expects that new businesses will contribute around 35 percent to its turnover this fiscal from almost nil in the previous year. In FY13, Stone India had earned a revenue of around Rs 104 crore. Bio-toilets, solar and project engineering are the new businesses while Railways is the core activity of the company. Though bio-toilets were introduced three years back but the product is yet to be popularized in a big way. Stone India recently got its first major order of bio-toilets from Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for 200 parks in Delhi and if feedback stays positive, DDA may offer another contract for 1,000 parks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to inaugurate the much awaited Rs 35,000 crore refinery project of Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL) in March next year. The 15 MTPA capacity oil refinery project of IOCL, now in final stage of completion, is expected to be commissioned in March 2015.The company has reported a net loss of Rs 898.46 crore for second quarter ended September 30, 2014 under review as compared to a net profit of Rs 1683.92 crore for the same quarter in the previous year. However, total income of the company has increased marginally by 1.15% at Rs 112121.01 crore for Q2FY15 as compared Rs 110848.51 crore for the corresponding quarter previous year. Wind energy farms set up by ITC are caught in the ‘cross fire’ between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over wheeling issue. The diversified corporate house, which has set up a series of wind farms to meet its internal requirements, is forced to pump the power generated into the grid for the past few months as there is lack of mechanism to wheel the power to its manufacturing units. As a result, it has supplied renewable energy worth Rs 12 crore free into the Andhra Pradesh Grid as it could not use it due to lack of wheeling arrangement. ITC has invested Rs 300 crore in a wind farms in Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh for captive usage at factories in Chirala, Anaparthi (now in Andhra) and Bhadrachalam (now in Telangana).