Taken together, these projects are expected to provide a fillip to KEC's fortunes, which saw a dip in six-monthly sales and net profit this fiscal compared with the previous year. KEC's starting off on the Daewoo power project will, however, depend on when the financial closure takes place for the project. The Daewoo power project will involve for KEC a transmission project to evacuate power from Daewoo Power's 1,070 mw powerproject at Korba. The 600-km-long, 400 kv double-circuit line will be developed on a build, operate and transfer basis. The ultimate ownership of the project will be with the Madhya Pradesh State Electricity Board. The project was won by a KEC consortium with Crompton Greaves against competition from a consortium of Jyoti Structures and Hyundai. The bid totalled $174 million.

The Indonesian order, worth $88 million, will be of great importance to KEC's bottomline this year. It involves implementation of four 275 kv double-circuit transmission lines on a turnkey basis in Sumatra, Indonesia. The total line length is of 507 km, and KEC will supply more than 24,000 metric tonnes of steel towers. This project was also clinched in competition with Cegelec and Hyundai. This will be the second KEC project in Indonesia. The company is also working on a 500 kv transmission line in association with Rolls Royce of the United Kingdom.

Another crucial order that will boost KEC's bottomline this fiscal is for asimilar transmission project in Abu Dhabi. The project in Indonesia was held up for some time by the economic crisis into which the whole of East Asia had plunged around the middle of last year. This prevented the firm from taking credit for the hefty project in the last fiscal, dragging down its bottomline. This year the implementation will help KEC strengthen its profits.