Promit Mukherjee

Mumbai: Aftershocks from the earthquake that shook China on Monday could well be felt in the Indian power sector, after the quake damaged a facility belonging to one of the country’s major equipment exporters.

Dongfang Electric, one of China’s top three equipment manufacturing companies, suffered severe damage to its generator and turbine manufacturing facility at Deyang City.

Though the extent of damage on the facility was not immediately known, analysts say that it would certainly hit the company’s operations and order book for the current year.

Akshay Soni and Binay Singh, analysts with brokerage Morgan Stanley, in a May 14 report had said: “Dongfang has won 19% of the power plant orders awarded to foreign players by Indian power generators.”

This translates into 4.3 gigawatts of orders from the Indian market to the equipment manufacturer.

The report said the earthquake will impact Dongfang’s ability to execute existing orders and may also deter the company from bidding for future orders in the Indian market.

A slowdown at Dongfang may offer other Chinese players - such as Shanghai Electric and Harbin Power - more opportunities, upon which they may reduce focus on the India.The analysts feel all this might turn out to be beneficial for stateowned equipment manufacturer Bhel in the short-term, as the company might snag some orders that could have gone the Chinese way.

An analyst with a leading international investment bank, requesting anonymity, disputed that, however, saying Bhel itself has its order book full for the next 30 months. Lanco Infratech and Sterlite have placed orders with Dongfang.

Source : DNA