BHEL Lands $287 Million Contract for IGCC Captive Power Plant

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), India's state-owned power giant, has clinched a $287 million turnkey contract to set up an environment-friendly and energy-efficient 153-megawatt (MW) captive power plant with a steam generation capacity of 702 tons per hour at the site of the upcoming Guru Gobind Singh refinery in Bhatinda, Punjab.

The order has been placed on BHEL by HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (Noida), a joint venture between Mittal Energy Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) (Mumbai). The public sector undertaking won the contract under a competitive international bidding process. The deal represents the largest single value order obtained by BHEL for a captive power project.

The joint venture expects to launch the 9 million ton-per-year (180,000 barrels per day) refinery by 2011, which will make Bathinda a major petrochemical hub in Asia. The refinery is being built to comply with Euro IV standards with a crude oil terminal at Mundra and a pipeline from Mundra to Bhatinda. HPCL and Mittal Energy Limited each hold a stake of 49% in the $4.7 billion refinery project while financial institutions take up the remaining 2%. Before the advent of Mittal Energy Limited, the project had been delayed for nearly a decade because of the lack of a suitable strategic partner.

BHEL will build a gas-turbine-based combined-cycle power unit that will cater to the power and process steam requirements of the refinery. Such a unit employs a gas turbine to generate electrical power and further utilizes the waste heat produced to generate steam, which is converted into additional electrical power in a steam engine. Combination of the two processes causes the overall efficiency to be higher than that of either process in isolation. The integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power unit will be charged using synthetic gas, also called syngas, produced by using pet coke, one of the products from the refinery. The syngas will also be used for generation of hydrogen as required by processing units in the refinery. The use of syngas as a feed to efficient gas turbines is an inherently clean process resulting in low emissions.

BHEL will be responsible for the design, manufacture, supply, construction, engineering and commissioning of the unit at Bhatinda. BHEL will procure requisite equipment from its plants at Trichy, Hyderabad, Jhansi, Bhopal and Ranipet, and from the Electronics Division at Bangalore. The Power Sector -- Northern Region of the public sector undertaking will execute all civil works as well as undertake erection and commissioning of the plant. The captive power unit is expected to be commissioned within 30 months.

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