Larsen & Toubro Ltd, India’s largest engineering and infrastructure firm, expects more business to flow in for modular projects following its successful delivery of Australia’s largest urea factory built in Tamil Nadu’s Kattupalli.
Modular infrastructure projects represent a $100-150 billion market opportunity, said Subramanian Sarma, deputy managing director and president at L&T on Friday.
Presently, the segment is dominated by companies in China and South Korea. However, with South Korea’s expensive costs and global buyers looking to diversify beyond China, India could have an opportunity to get a larger share of this market, Sarma added.
While has delivered a few modular projects in the past to countries such as Singapore, Thailand, and the Netherlands, the Australian project was on a much larger scale and will help the company establish itself as a credible player in the market, Sarma said.
The company shipped a 2.3 million-tonnes-per-annum urea manufacturing plant to Perdaman Chemicals & Fertilisers in Karratha, Western Australia. The 64,000-tonne unit was shipped in 110 large modular pieces over 23 voyages.
Project Ceres
Called Project Ceres, the unit is a project of national importance to Australia aimed at insulating its agricultural industry from global supply chain shocks for . L&T was a subcontractor in the project brought on board to supply the prefabricated unit. The project was managed by a joint venture between Italy’s Saipem and Australia’s Clough.
Modular construction involves prefabricating large components of a manufacturing unit at a yard and then and installing them at the final location. This method helps build in locations with extreme weather conditions or with high labour costs.
L&T has three yards of modular manufacturing at Kattupalli, Hazira in Gujarat and Sohar in Oman.
“Delivering modular fabrication of this scale, with an excellent safety record, for Australia, demonstrates the depth of India’s industrial ecosystem and its ability to meet demanding international standards,” S.N. Subrahmanyan, chairman and managing director, L&T, said in a press statement.
“The landmark achievement strengthens L&T’s position as a trusted global partner and reinforces India’s potential to become a leading hub for complex modular solutions.”
Sarma said that modularization was a game-changer in the delivery of large and complex energy projects. “By shifting substantial construction, integration, testing and pre-commissioning activities from the project site to a controlled fabrication environment, it enables parallel execution, strengthens safety and quality oversight, improves predictability and reduces complexity at the site.”
Project Ceres demonstrates how engineering, procurement, fabrication and international logistics can be integrated into a single delivery model to execute world-scale projects with greater certainty, he added.
L&T shares ended 0.78% higher at ₹3,860 on BSE on Friday compared to a 0.03% dip in the Sensex.