State-run Bharat Heavy Electricals today said that it plans  a joint venture with a European firm to manufacture nuclear forgings on a technology-transfer basis and the process should be completed by this calendar year.

Without naming the company, BHEL CMD, K Ravi Kumar told reporters that the company was looking at a joint venture with a European firm for manufacturing nuclear forgings this calendar year and BHEL would buy the technology from the European partner.

Kumar said that the public sector company expects to grow at 25-30 per cent in the current year, despite the current economic slowdown, and has lined up investment plans worth around Rs10,000 crore for the next three years (See: BHEL sees 30 per cent growth despite the global slowdown) and the current order booking was Rs45, 000 crore.

The company board has already approved Rs 4,800 crore for investing in expansion for the financial year 2009-10.

Last month, K Ravi Kumar had said that BHEL was in talks with Japanese and European companies for establishing a casting and forgings plant under a joint venture and was also in the process of entering the field of nuclear reactors. It already has a joint venture with Nuclear Power Corporation of India (See: BHEL-NPCIL joint venture finalising technology partner)

Media reports had suggested last month that the company was talking to the UK-based Sheffield Forgemasters International and Japan's Kobe Steel for a possible JV, to set up a greenfield manufacturing base in India for nuclear forgings.

With critical equipment for nuclear plants in acute short supply globally, BHEL and other Indian companies like Larsen and Toubro are planning to set up dedicated manufacturing facilities in India to solve the problem of supply.

In September last year, K Ravi Kumar had said that BHEL would invest Rs1,400 crore to develop a manufacturing facility for castings and forgings by a 50:50 joint venture with Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) needed by the two units of HEC, Heavy Machine Building Plant (HMBP) and Heavy Machine Tools Plant (HMTP). (See: BHEL to invest Rs1,400 crore in castings and forgings facility)

According to experts, India would require nearly 700-800 large nuclear forgings weighing 100,000 tonnes for its civilian nuclear plant expansion plan in the next 20 to 25 years.

Even though India's atomic and space research programme is nearly 40-50 years old, due to the technology denial regime enforced against India by the west for decades, the country still does not have a plant to make large open die steel forgings for the nuclear industry quality nor large steel castings although India is a major player in the steel industry.

In a nuclear plant, the reactor pressure vessels uses very large and high integrity steel forgings in their manufacture.

Currently the world manufacturing capacity of nuclear forgings is less than half the expected demand and with more countries embracing nuclear energy as a primary source of clean power this shortfall will be more acute and by manufacturing the forgings locally, India will save on precious foreign exchange.

With the signing of the Indo-US nuclear deal, India is looking to enhance its nuclear power generation capacity by building more reactors and to meet its requirement of 700-800 nuclear forgings, experts say that India will require a minimum of two or three manufacturing plants as China, whose nuclear industry is growing at a rapid pace already has five large nuclear forging plants.