Bharat Forge in Rs 1,500 crore non-auto spend

Bharat Forge, the Pune based forging firm, plans to invest Rs 1,200-1,500 crore in its non-automotive sector business over the next three-and-a-half years.

This would mark the beginning of the company’s second phase of expansion in the non-automotive sector, primarily aerospace, marine and nuclear power plants.

“In the last two years, the company has invested nearly Rs 400 crore for expanding in the non-automotive business, and in the coming years we will invest an additional Rs 1,200-1,500 crore to mainly manufacture forgings of up to 500 tonnes needed for large power plants and nuclear power plants,” Baba Kalyani, chairman and managing director, Bharat Forge, said at the inauguration of ring rolling facility at Baramati on Monday.

The company, which currently manufactures forgings of 40-50 tonnes, is targeting 40% of its total sales from the non-automotive sector by 2012 from the present 22%.

The first phase of the non-automotive sector expansion included setting up of a 4,000 tonnes open die press facility at Pune and the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing at Baramati which includes an 80 metric tonne counterblow hammer facility and the ring rolling facility.

The proposed Rs 1,200 crore investment would be for expansion at Baramati and Pune and towards facility for making power plant equipment at Mundra in Gujarat under a joint venture with Alstom. The facility will manufacture 300-800 mw subcritical and supercritical equipment with an annual capacity of 5,000 mw.

The joint venture will also explore possibilities of manufacturing turbines and generators for gas-based plants and nuclear applications.

Apart from this, Bharat forge would set up two more facilities at Baramati. While the first one to be inaugurated by June this year would make crankshafts of about 5 metre long and 4 tonne weight for heavy locomotive industry,  the second unit to be opened by end of 2010 would make 12 metre and 35 tonne crankshafts, mainly to be used  for large marine applications and aerospace industry.

The Baramati facilithas been set up to primarily cater to the non-automotive sector.

“India is still lagging behind in heavy industry component manufacturing to such an extent that we are highly dependent on overseas companies for critical components. Therefore, in future we would require facilities which can manufacture supercritical and ultra-supercritical technologies and Bharat Forge through its expansion is making a move in that direction,” Kalyani said.