Nuclear Thread - 4

[Arun_S]

This is good news.

[url="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=amQERbaUDLl8"]Larsen Targets $1.3 Billion of Nuclear Orders a Year (Update2)[/url]

By Gaurav Singh



Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Larsen & Toubro Ltd., India’s largest engineering company, aims to win 60 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) of orders a year building nuclear reactors by 2015 as a global shift to cleaner energy spurs demand for atomic plants.



“The first orders for the foreign reactors will start coming in 2011,” M.V. Kotwal, Larsen’s senior vice president, said in an interview in New Delhi late yesterday. “We can cater to the needs for critical equipment for any of these technologies, whether Russian, French or American.”



Atomic energy companies led by Areva SA and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy are flocking to India after a three-decade global ban on nuclear trade was lifted last year. Global spending on new reactors may reach as much as $1.05 trillion by 2030, according to management consultants Capgemini, as fossil-fuel generators are retired and governments seek carbon-emission cuts.



“Larsen is best prepared among Indian companies to take advantage of opportunities that will emerge in the nuclear space,” Abhineet Anand, an analyst at Antique Stock Broking Ltd., said by telephone today. “Nuclear power will play a very important role and Larsen is doing its homework before getting revenue by tying up with global nuclear equipment makers.”



Indian power equipment makers Larsen and state-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. are seeking technology and manufacturing ventures with overseas companies as India increases nuclear power generation capacity.



Hitachi, Westinghouse



The engineering company signed preliminary agreements with Wilmington, North Carolina-based GE Hitachi, Monroeville, Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse Electric Co., a subsidiary of Tokyo’s Toshiba Corp., and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., based in Mississauga, this year.



Larsen rose 1.9 percent to 1,687.65 rupees in Mumbai trading. The company’s share has more than doubled this year, outpacing a 78 percent increase in the benchmark Sensitive Index.



Mumbai-based Larsen has the capacity to build four nuclear reactors of about 1,000 megawatts each at a time and can increase capability as it secures orders, Kotwal said.



Larsen, which earned 37.9 billion rupees on sales of 401.9 billion rupees in the year ended March, formed a joint venture with state-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of India for a forging plant to produce components for energy projects, including atomic power plants.



India may produce 60,000 megawatts of nuclear energy by 2030, Shyam Saran, special envoy to the prime minister, said Jan. 8. The South Asian nation, which currently has 4,120 megawatts of atomic power capacity, has identified two sites for U.S. companies to build plants and one for Paris-based Areva, the world’s biggest maker of nuclear reactors.



The number of nuclear power reactors may potentially increase 30 percent by 2020, driven by India and China, the World Nuclear Association estimates. Fifty plants are being built worldwide, almost double the number under construction in 2004, according to the association in London.



To contact the reporter on this story: Gaurav Singh in New Delhi at gsingh31@bloomberg.net.