Tata Steel eyes investment in Pakistan
New Delhi: India's largest private steel maker Tata Steel says that Pakistan is an ideal destination for selling and making some of its products.

"Pakistan has a good market and when its economy grows it will have a better market," said B Muthuraman, managing director, Tata Steel. Muthuraman added that Pakistan may not be a good location to make steel at a competitive cost. "The primary steel can be made in India and one can have finishing facilities in Pakistan. Tata steel is looking at these possibilities," Muthuraman said.

Tata Steel is also looking at business opportunities in Bangladesh, he said. So far, Indian business houses have not been allowed to make direct investments in Pakistan.
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TRAI slashes domestic bandwidth tariff
New Delhi: The TRAI has slashed tariff for domestic bandwidth, the domestic leased circuit (DLC), from between three to seventy per cent.

The reduced ceiling tariff for 64 kbps, 128 kbps, 256 kbps by 54 per cent to Rs0.44 lakh, will now stand at Rs0.79 lakh and Rs1.36 lakh compared to the existing market rate of Rs0.96 lakh, Rs1.72 lakh and Rs2.97 lakh respectively, TRAI has said in a release.

The revised ceiling tariff for E1 (speed of 2 mbps) has been cut by three per cent to Rs8.50 lakh from the market rate of Rs8.80 lakh. Tariff for DS-3 (45 mbps) has been reduced 67 per cent at Rs62 lakh compared to the existing market rate of Rs185 lakh.

For STM-1 (155 mbps) category, the tariff has been cut by 70 per cent at Rs165 lakh from the existing market rate of Rs554 lakh.

The ceiling tariff prescribed by the order will take effect from May 1, 2005. TRAI will review the situation with regard to developments in the DLC segment after a year. Domestic Leased Circuit is the medium of carriage of data and voice services within the country.
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Shell-Total combine commissions LNG terminal and port at Hazira
New Delhi: The Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Total Gaz Electricite Holdings France have formally announced the inauguration of the Hazira LNG Terminal and Port at Hazira in Gujarat with the unloading of the first cargo of LNG from the ship Gemmata.

The terminal has been set up with an investment of over Rs3,000 crore. The company has also sold the first gas from the terminal to Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC).

Shell Gas B.V holds 74 per cent of equity in the Hazira companies, while Total Gaz holds 26 per cent.

According to the company officials, the Hazira terminal does not follow the conventional model of sourcing. Instead of sourcing from a particular project on long-term and then tying up long-term sales contract with customers in the importing countries, it offers flexible customer tailored contracts.

The first gas was sourced from Australia's North West Shelf project, in which Shell has a 22 per cent stake. The cargo has been sold to GSPC. A Shell-controlled tanker, Gemmata, carried the first cargo.

The LNG terminal's initial throughput capacity is of 2.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), which the company proposes to raise to 5 mtpa. The site has been laid out for increasing capacity up to 10 mtpa with two additional tanks.

LNG for Hazira may be sourced from Shell-partnered plants in Oman, Australia, Brunei and Malaysia or Total's LNG production in Indonesia, Qatar, Oman and Abu Dhabi. On the issue of price at which Shell sold the gas to GSPC, the company remained non-committal. However, indications are that it has sold at a price few cents more than Petronet's sale price of $ 3.66 per million British thermal unit (mBtu).

The company has not tied up with any other customer other than GSPC and was open to giving equity to a company that brought value to the business.

The LNG terminal and port was dedicated to the nation this afternoon by the Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mani Shankar Aiyar, and the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, at simultaneous ceremonies at New Delhi, Gandhinagar and Hazira.
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Siemens bags order from PowerGrid
Mumbai: Siemens Ltd has bagged a Rs147-crore order from PowerGrid Corporation of India for turnkey transmission sub-station project at Seoni in Madhya Pradesh.

The company will be providing turnkey sub-stations, having voltage levels of 765 kV, 400 kV and 220 kV to the project. "This project will be implemented by the high voltage turnkey solutions group, which has recently been recognised by Siemens AG as a global centre of competence," according to Haminder Singh, Director (Energy) of Siemens Ltd.
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Dishman Pharma acquires UK company Synprotec
Mumbai: The Ahmedabad-based Dishman Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals Ltd has informed the stock exchanges that it has acquired an UK-based contract research company called Synprotec Ltd, through its subsidiary company, Dishman Europe Ltd.

The assets base of Synprotec is around £2 million and Dishman has negotiated the cost of acquisition even below this price, the company said.

Synprotec has contract R&D and manufacturing capabilities in the UK. It has a healthy order book covering contract research assignments of several molecules for various MNCs. Synprotec has a track record of more than 20 years of customer relationships with pharma and chemical multinationals through its strong market presence in Europe and the US.

Dishman will retain all key technical personnel including the services of Dr Peter Nightingale, the founder promoter of Synprotec, who will now form part of the global technical board of the Dishman group.
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Quarterly Results: Satyam, NALCO, Jindal Stainless, Sonata
Satyam Q4 net jumps 17.8 per cent
New Delhi: Technology major Satyam Computer Services has beaten street expectations with its fourth quarter results reporting a net profit of Rs206 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2005. This is a jump of over seventeen per cent compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.

On a QoQ basis, the revenues have touched Rs971 crore, up from Rs723 crore. The other income for Q4 is up at Rs25.2 crore, up from Rs4.9 crore.

The company has pegged the FY06 revenue guidance at 26-28 per cent. It has declared a final dividend of Rs3 per share.

The company has announced that it will buy UK-based Citisoft for GBP20.5 mn .

NALCO Q4 net up 59 per cent
New Delhi: The National Aluminium Company Ltd has posted a 59.31 per cent rise in net profit at Rs421.83 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2005, while the net profit for the corresponding quarter in the previous fiscal had stood at Rs264.77 crore.

Total Income increased 29.30 per cent at Rs1334.95 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2005 from Rs1032.43 crore in same quarter in 2003-04, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.

NALCO posted a net profit after tax of Rs1222.43 crore for the year ended March 31, 2005 as compared to Rs737.37 crore for the year ended March 31, 2004. Total Income increased to Rs4365.51 crore for the year ended March 31, 2005 from Rs3324.84 crore in the previous year, it said.

Jindal Stainless Q4 net rises to Rs92.89 crore
New Delhi: Jindal Stainless Ltd has reported a net profit of Rs92.89 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2005, registering a 239.01 per cent increase compared to the corresponding quarter in the previous fiscal, mainly due to higher margins.

The company has also announced a second interim dividend of 60 per cent taking the final figure to 120 per cent, according to a company release.

Total income during the quarter moved up by 24.27 per cent to Rs954.33 crore compared to Rs767.94 crore in the same period of the previous financial year.

For the full 2004-05, the company has registered a 52.34 per cent increase in net profit at Rs250.14 crore as against Rs164.19 crore last fiscal.

Total income during 2004-05 stood at Rs3,182.75 crore compared to Rs2,420.16 crore last year. The company recorded an export income of $245 million despite the slowing down of the Chinese economy. The operations at PT Jindal Stainless Indonesia have stabilised for the past four months and have recorded an operational profit, the release added.

At its first board meeting today after the demise of the group patriarch and chairman of the company, O.P. Jindal, his wife Ms Savitri Devi Jindal was elected as Chairperson and additional director.

This is the second company, the first being Jindal Vijaynagar, that Ms Jindal has assumed the role of Chairperson. The board meeting of Jindal Steel and Power is scheduled for the first week of May.
The company also announced signing of a MoU with Italy-based Steelway to form a joint venture company, Jindal Stainless Steelway Ltd, to set up a service centre for its products near Gurgaon in Haryana.

The Jindals would hold 80 per cent stake, while Steelway would hold 20 per cent.

The Italian partner would provide the technical and marketing expertise in all aspects of equipment selection, plan layout, operation and maintenance, and also arrange for training of operators on-site and in Italy.

Sonata Q4 net rises to Rs4.5 crore
Bangalore: Sonata Software has recorded Rs97 crore revenue for 2004-05, a 39-per cent rise over the previous year, with net profit of Rs16.4 crore, a 44-per cent rise .

The company has raised the final dividend to 35 per cent. Sequentially, Sonata's fourth quarter revenues rose seven per cent to Rs27 crore netting profit of Rs4.5 crore. Revenues and profits in the corresponding quarter in the previous fiscal were Rs19.4 crore and Rs3.3 crore respectively.

Consolidated revenues for the year-ended March 31, 2005, were Rs329.3 crore (Rs222.2 crore).
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