Trafigura makes first Asia investment in Tamil Nadu

Chennai: Trafigura Pte Ltd, the Singapore-based unit of the world’s third-largest crude oil trader, Netherlands’ Trafigura Beheer BV, picked up a 24 per cent stake in Nagarjuna Oil Corporation Limited (NOCL). NOCL is setting up an oil refinery in Tamil Nadu.

Trafigura will invest around Rs 650 crore for the stake and another Rs 600 crore in Portoil Ltd, a 80:20 joint venture (JV) between NOCL and Trafigura.

With this stake, Trafigura has replaced BP as NOCL’s crude supplier.

“With BP, Nagarjuna Oil had a commercial agreement for crude supplies and export of products but Trafigura has come as a strategic investor ... it is buying a stake in the project,” said a source privy to the deal.

K S Raju, chairman of the Nagarjuna Group, said in addition to acquiring an equity stake, Trafigura would invest the additional Rs 600 crore into the construction of extensive storage facilities and associated infrastructure through Portoil Ltd. This will come up in a 100-acre site near the refinery’s 2,500-acre site.

NOCL is setting up a six-million tonne oil refinery at Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu. Commissioning work at the refinery is expected to start later this year.

Jonathan Pegler, Trafigura’s director of oil Asia Pacific said, “This is an important, long-term venture for Trafigura and is an exciting project for all concerned. It plays directly to the strengths of Nagarjuna as a leading process operator and to Trafigura as a company committed to balancing international supply and demand for oil products”.

NOCL’s refinery will be an anchor unit for the proposed Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemicals Investment Region (PCPIR) in the Cuddalore-Nagapattinam belt. The PCPIR envisages an investment of over Rs 13,000 crore in developing infrastructure in the region over the next ten years.

The Nagarjuna Petroleum refinery is being constructed at Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu at an estimated cost of Rs 7,160 crore. Including the cost of utilities and captive facilities like minor port, tankages, power plant, marketing terminal etc, the total estimated cost of the NOCL refinery project is around Rs 10,000 crore.

Trafigura is one of the leading international commodity traders, handling a diverse range of raw materials from oil and refined products to non-ferrous metals, iron ore and coal to clients around the world.

Other partners in the NOCL Refinery project include TIDCO, a

Government of Tamil Nadu enterprise, and Tata Petrodyne, a Tata Group enterprise, Cuddalore Port Company Ltd and Uhde of Germany.

Tamil Nadu to recruit 7,000 teachers for government schools

CHENNAI: With a view to ensure the 1:40 teacher-student ratio in government-run schools in the state, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today directed creating about 7,000 new additional teacher vacancies.

The Chief Minister has directed creating a total of 6,872 graduate teacher vacancies in the current academic year, which would result in the government incurring an expenditure of Rs 181.36 crore annually.

A state government release here said she had also directed creating 1,590 additional post graduate teaching vacancies to cater to the said student-teacher ratio in government-run higher secondary schools. The state exchequer will incur an additional sum of Rs 45.25 crore.

Further, the government also announced hiking the monthly wages of guest lecturers in Government Arts and Science Colleges to Rs 10,000 from Rs 6,000 per month.

TN plans to introduce new info-tech, IT-enabled service policy

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Government proposes to bring out a new information technology and IT-enabled service policy that will engender many avant-garde features. This will catapult Tamil Nadu to the numero uno position, said the Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, without giving any time frame or details of the policy.

“My Government is committed to providing an investor-friendly industrial policy framework to provide a healthy and productive environment. I have a vision or a dream to make Tamil Nadu numero uno in terms of all-round development,” she said at Connect2011, which is the 11th edition of the annual conference to promote the State as a destination for information, communication and technology. Incidentally, in her earlier tenure as Chief Minister, Ms Jayalalithaa had inaugurated the first Connect event in 2001.

Sunshine sector
“We would like to be a State with the right attitude towards investors. Tamil Nadu is a State that delivers and we need partners who can see growth both in the old and the new economy and participate in the generation and creation of wealth,” she said.

The Indian IT sector continues to be one of the sunshine sectors of the Indian economy, showing rapid growth and promise. IT has powered the transformation of Tamil Nadu into a modern economy, clearly making it India's eastern gateway to the world, not just South Asia.

Tamil Nadu has emerged as a global leader in ITeS verticals such as banking, financial services and insurance, health systems management, computer-aided design and computer-aided engineering, she said.

In 2010-11, software exports from STPI units in Tamil Nadu touched Rs 42,100 crore, and if exports from the IT SEZ units are included, the total exports would be above Rs 50,000 crore, she said.

“Tamil Nadu and Chennai have become the destination of choice for IT investments. At present, Tamil Nadu has over 1,800 software and ITeS exporters, including over 210 foreign, wholly-owned subsidiaries and multinational companies in software development, she said.

Ms Jayalalithaa thanked Mr S. Ramadorai, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Skill Development, for his suggestions on improving the industrial climate in the State.

Opportunity to grow
In his keynote address, Mr Ramadorai, who is also Vice-Chairman of Tata Consultancy Services, said with the combination of talent, technology and incentivised policy, the State has all the ingredients to make the leap to becoming a global destination for products and services. Consequently, a city such as Chennai has the opportunity to grow into a global city.

Tamil Nadu has India's brightest minds, a large entrepreneurial force, a vibrant entertainment industry and thriving arts and cultural landscape. Its growth can be powered by sectors such as automotive, textile, manufacturing, biotech, health and pharma, energy, animation and visual effects and IT, in which it has already established leadership, he said.