Afcons Infrastructure is setting up a Rs 250-crore fabrication yard at Mahua, Gujarat, for oil and gas platforms

Afcons Infrastructure is setting up a Rs 250-crore fabrication yard at Mahua, Gujarat, for oil and gas platforms.

Afcons is a Shapoorji Pallonji Group company.

A memorandum of understanding has been signed with the State Government after acceptance of its detailed project report.

The fabrication facility will come up on 120 hectares.

"We are going to build offshore jackets and the top side for well and process platforms there," said Pramod Kumar Johri, Director, Oil & Gas, Afcons.

Johri said ONGC was set to order out over $10 billion over the next five years and Afcons was gearing up to bag a fair share.

The orders are for offshore and onshore platforms, besides renovation of installations in the western and eastern region, he said.

Currently, Afcons is executing a Rs 1,800-crore order for the Heera field, off Mumbai. The order, awarded by ONGC, is being done in partnership with Technip of France and a Malaysian company.

Process platforms

Earlier, the first process platform order worth about Rs 2,200 crore from ONGC marked Afcons foray into the offshore market.

The project was executed in joint venture with PT Gunanusa of Indonesia. On the recent pipeline order executed by Afcons for ONGC, he said it was worth Rs 50 crore. Asked what expertise overseas partners bring in, he said partnerships helped to qualify in the first place.

The company also felt it was more competitive when it came to process platforms.

Process platforms orders stood at Rs 1,500 crore and the company considered it as the right size to work on.

Afcons holding company, Shapoorji Pallonji, is also focussing on oil and gas.

It had recently chartered a floating FPSO (floating, production, storage and offtake) platform to ONGC and has been contracted for another platform.

The FPSO is a floating process platform which can substitute a permanent one, he said.

Afcons is also scouting for overseas opportunities. It is looking to expand to West Asia, besides Myanmar and Indonesia.

The company wants to tap the potential for oil and gas exploration in North Africa.