NTPC listing in second week of Nov

National Thermal Power Corporation will list on major stock exchanges in the second week of November, director (finance) P Narasimharamulu said today.

NTPC's public issue of 86.58 crore equity shares opens on October 7 and will close on October 14. The issue, being done through the book-building route, has a price band of Rs 52-62 per share.

"We plan to list around Diwali," Narasimharamulu told reporters here. Proceeds of the issue would be used to set up 11 new power units in various parts of the country at an estimated cost of Rs 10,812.1 crore.

The company will also sign an agreement with Reliance Industries to source natural gas for its power projects in Gujarat by October end. "The gas sale and purchase agreement is being vetted and we hope to sign it after our IPO closes on October 14. The contract could not be signed in August because the petroleum ministry had asked for additional time to sort out the pipelines issue," senior NTPC officials said.

Reliance will sell about three million standard cubic metre per day of natural gas from its gas field in Krishna-Godavari basin to NTPC's Kawas and Gandhar power projects in Gujarat from early 2007.

Reliance had won the contract for supply of gas, quoting an aggressive price of $2.97 per million British Thermal Unit (btu).

"We expect the cost of generation of power from this gas to be less than Rs two per unit," the official said.

Though NTPC had awarded the contract to Reliance in July, the two had not yet been able to sign the agreement due to confusion over who would lay the 1400 km pipeline from Kakinada to Ahmedabad.

While Reliance wanted to lay the pipeline on its own, state-run gas transporter GAIL India Ltd had staked a claim to lay the line, arguing that it was the monopoly transporter of gas. The petroleum ministry has, however, overruled Gail's objections and has allowed Reliance to lay pipelines on common carrier principle.

In a bid to enhance fuel security, NTPC has also applied for coal mining in Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal, officials said. "Once we have approval for coal mining, we can have a buffer stock with which to supply our plants. This will allow us to operate more efficiently and also give us a price benchmark," they added.

Downplaying the critical coal stock situation in power stations, officials said that coal supply was in fact better than last year and the shortage was on account of better transmission having enabled better usage of generation capacity in the Eastern States. A number of NTPC plants are at pitheads, so there is no cause for worry, they added.