Larsen & Toubro's A M Naik with his selected men is all set to unleash a power play, which might change the rules for public sector power equipment giant Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL), especially after its latest super-critical project worth over Rs 6000 crore from Mahagenco.
Y M Deosthalee, CFO of L&T Group, said, "Power will be forming now 30 per cent of our order book and with this order we have reached about 28 per cent."
L&T, despite being a new entrant in the super-critical category, seems to be in a hurry to gain market share. It has a super-critical capacity of 4000 megawatts per year and an order book of 3,750 megawatt, clearly a threat to BHEL whose total capacity is upto 15,000 megawatt.
Ravi Uppal, MD & CEO of L&T Power, said, "We had option to get into super critical where we took the call. BHEL offers both sets but it is highly tied up with sub-critical.”
While BHEL declined to comment on this story, experts say that L&T will have a tough time capturing market share.
Hitul Gutka, an analyst at IndiaInfoline, said, "The future is going to be of super-critical and BHEL being a government player and having a mega capacity, will leverage that. Moreover, it has a JV partner for technology so it will not be a problem for BHEL to move ahead in the super-critical space."
Super-critical technology is the next big thing in power sector and the next war front is the Rs 30,000 crore tender from NTPC for boilers and turbines in the super critical space.
L&T and BHEL are expected to be rival bidders along with several foreign firms as partners.