Sesa Sterlite, Reliance Infra and Gail India to see some action today

India’s Sesa Sterlite would invest $782 million over a three-year period in southern Africa to tap the region’s large undeveloped deposits of the metal and offset a fall in production volume from its mine in Ireland. The company would spend about $630 million to develop an open-pit zinc mine and associated infrastructure at Gamsberg, South Africa. The balance will be used to convert the refinery at the Skorpion mine in Namibia to enable to it to refine zinc concentrates from Gamsberg into special high grade metal. The output from Gamsberg, where first ore is likely to be produced in 2017-18, along with the up-gradation of the refinery in Namibia will help the company make up for loss of volume resulting from the end of life of the Lisheen mine in Ireland. Reliance Infrastructure has announced the cancellation of Mumbai’s Metro Line 2 project citing non-fulfilment of certain obligations by the Maharashtra government. Mumbai Metro Transport wherein Reliance Infrastructure holds 48% of the equity and government of Maharashtra have terminated the concession agreement for the Mumbai Metro Line 2 Project (Charkop -Bandra-Mankhurd corridor). The project was awarded by the Maharashtra government to Reliance Infrastructure-led consortium in August 2009 through international competitive bidding. The estimated cost of the project was about Rs 12,000 crore. Both parties agreed to terminate the concession agreement at no cost or claim to either party. State run natural gas company GAIL (India), along with state gas companies of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan has set up a company that will build, own and operate 1,800-kilometer of gas pipeline across Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI). The company has been incorporated as a Special Purpose Vehicle in the Isle of Man, a British Crown dependency. It would be responsible for finance, design, construction, operation and maintenance of the TAPI pipeline. The TAPI pipeline will export up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India over 30 years. The pipeline is expected to carry 90 mmscmd gas, of which India and Pakistan would get 38 mmscmd each. Software major Infosys is in the race to acquire CIMPA, the engineering services unit of Airbus, making it potentially the first acquisition after Vishal Sikka took charge as CEO over three months back. The deal will help Infosys deepen its presence in the engineering services space, a segment that currently contributes to less than 5% of its revenues. France-based CIMPA works in the area of product lifecycle management has 940 employees and had sales of 100 million euros in 2012. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) has registered a loss of Rs 951.47 crore during the second quarter of 2014-15 fiscal against a profit of Rs 235.77 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. The company posted loss due to higher fuel consumption on account of stabilization of newly added units and also higher inventory loss. It also recorded lower physical performance during the period. Throughput of the refinery came down by 6 percent during the quarter. It achieved a throughput of 3.47 million tonnes (3.69 million tonnes) during Q2 of 2014-15. The company attributed the decrease in throughput to plant upsets while commissioning of new units, resulting in non-availability of secondary processing units. Royal Enfield Motors, the maker of iconic Bullet, has decided to set up a second project in the Oragadam manufacturing corridor, near Chennai. The company, which is a part of Eicher Motors, has acquired a 50 acre plot at a cost of Rs 57 crore at Vallam Vadakal near Chennai (where Yamaha is also setting up its factory) to set up a brand new plant. The upcoming unit will be its third factory in Chennai, and second one at the Oragadam industrial belt. Royal Enfield is ramping up the production capacity from 3 lakh units (Thiruvottiyur + Oragadam) to 4 lakh units in 2015 and 6 lakh units in the subsequent year. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has deferred a planned shutdown of key units at its Koyali refinery in western Gujarat state to March-April 2015 from around October this year to capitalize on sliding crude prices. IOC, the country’s biggest refiner, had initially planned maintenance shutdowns of a cooling tower, the fluid catalytic cracker and other facilities at Koyali in September-October. State-run IOC had already cut throughput at five refineries in September after heavy rains curbed demand for diesel in northern and eastern regions of the country. The maintenance shutdown in March-April means most of the five crude units at Koyali, which has a refining capacity of 274,000 barrels per day (bpd), will not operate for 10-30 days. RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group flagship firm, CESC, will commission its Haldia power plant on November 26. To be inaugurated by the West Bengal Chief Minsiter, Mamata Banerjee, the Rs 4,600 crore project will have a 600 MW capacity. The second phase will be operational over the next 4 to months. The plant will cater to CESC’s own consumers in Kolkata and the suburbs. Realty major DLF disclosed another proceeding by SEBI against the company, even as it has challenged the regulator’s order in a case related to violation of IPO disclosure norms. DLF has already made its submissions to SEBI and hearings have concluded with regard to a show-cause notice issued to it by the capital markets watchdog in August 2013. DLF and its six top executives, including chairman and main promoter K P Singh, were found to have indulged in active and deliberate suppression of material information at the time of its IPO in 2007. Within days of SEBI order, India’s largest realty firm had approached the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) which has granted an interim relief.