WCA September 2012

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2012 55
India
ArcelorMittal suspends
expansion
lACK of demand has moved ArcelorMittal, one of the
world’s largest steelmakers, to suspend a $1.5 billion
Brazilian expansion plan, Benjamin Baptista, president of
the company’s Brazil unit has said in a Valor Economico
newspaper report.
Demand for steel is not expanding fast enough in Brazil and
the outlook for global demand in the face of Greece and
Europe’s debt problems is weak, Baptista told Valor.
luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, controlled by Indian
billionaire lakshmi Mittal, had planned to build a $1.2 billion
wire rod plant at its mill in Monlevade, Brazil, and a speciality
steel production line at its mill in Vega do Sul, Brazil.
The Monlevade wire rod plant has much of its foundation
work completed and all the equipment has been bought, the
paper said.
ArcelorMittal – Luxembourg
Website:
National stadium
cabling
R&M, a supplier of passive cabling solutions, has installed
broadcast cabling at the Narodowy National Stadium in
Warsaw. A release from the company said that the
backbone of the national stadium is based on 72-fibre
single mode optic cables, category OS2, while the risk of
failure is minimised through redundant cabling, led through
separate routes.
Speaking about the installation, Mr Gaurav Ahuwalia,
managing director of R&M, said, “We understand the
importance of secure data transfer at a high speed in order
to broadcast the game [in] real time.”
R&M – India
Website:
India’s peak power
deficit nearly 11,000MW
in April
AMID signs of a worsening power supply situation for Indian
consumers, the shortfall in electricity generation during peak
hours stood at nearly 11,000MW in April as fuel scarcity hit
thermal plants.
The country’s peak power deficit – the shortfall in generation
capacity during the time when the electricity consumption is
the maximum – touched 10,876MW in April, according to
the official data. The significant deficit implies
non-availability of enough electricity to meet the needs of
consumers.
Many states, especially in south India, are already
challenged with load shedding and power cuts. Consumers
in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka
and Tamil Nadu, and union territory of Puducherry were the
worst affected by electricity shortage.
Data compiled by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA)
showed that total power generation capacity was just
1,17,124MW in June, whereas the demand reached
1,28,000MW.
Central Electricity Authority – India
Website:
Lost capacity
THE Hindu Business line has reported that as much as
24,353MW of thermal power capacity is unused, because
the plants are under repairs. Of this, 13,204MW of capacity
has been under ‘forced outage’ for over 15 days,
according to the Daily Outage Report provided by the
Central Electricity Authority.
Including plant shutdown due to “planned maintenance
and other reasons”, the total thermal capacity remaining
unused on 22nd May was 32,438 MW – 18 per cent of the
thermal capacity of 176,836MW monitored by CEA. (The
total installed thermal capacity in the country is
199,627MW.) As much as 12,330MW was categorised
under ‘major outage’.
The Mahatma Gandhi Thermal Power Station in Haryana
(600MW), the Mundra TPS unit 6 (660MW) and the
Bhusawal unit 5 in Maharashtra (500MW) are examples of
projects shut down due to ‘major problems’ in boiler,
turbine or coal handling plants. It is unclear as to how the
CEA classifies outages into ‘major’ and ‘minor’.
The shutdown of four units of 210MW each of the Mettur
Thermal Power Station after fire damaged the coal
handling plant is listed under ‘minor’. The plant will be out
of operation for at least 20 days.
Central Electricty Authority – India
Website:
Aradhya Steel rating
reduced
FITCH Ratings has downgraded India-based Aradhya Steel
Private limited’s (Aradhya) national long-term rating to
‘Fitch D(ind)’ from ‘Fitch BB(ind)’/Stable.
The downgrade reflects Aradhya’s continued delays in
meeting its debt obligations since FY12 (year end March).