Kumar stated “Without help in commissioning a project, it gets very difficult to set them up on our own.”
BHEL already has a presence in Libya and Iraq. In Iraq, it has bagged contracts including the 250 megawatts (MW) Rumailla project which entailed the supply, management, engineering and building of gas turbines, auxiliaries and generators as part of the oil-for-food programme of the United Nations. It has also provided a gas-turbine based power station to the 500 MW Sulaymaniyah project located in Kurdistan.
BHEL has established the 600 MW Western Mountain project and another 300 MW project in Libya, as part of its expansion.
Iraq remains a danger zone in West Asia with US troops combating insurgents, while Libya which has massive hydrocarbon reserves within Africa, has faced sanctions because of its record of backing terrorist groups.
With numerous rebuilding projects emerging in Iraq, BHEL was hopeful of securing contracts in one of the world’s major oil generation countries.
Global orders represent INR75 billion out of BHEL’s INR1.25 trillion total orders. BHEL’s main global markets are Central Asia, Africa and West Asia. By 2012, the company intends to increase exports to INR103 billion.
Madanagopal R., an equity research analyst at Centrum Broking Pvt. Ltd, who follows BHEL, said “International orders form a small percentage of BHEL’s order book. It is not a significant worry. But going forward, with the domestic order flow likely to decline from the present levels, if the international orders also decline then it makes a difference of 3-4% in the order flow.”
