Billionaire Gautam Adani may not tie up with TotalEnergies as of now for developing the green hydrogen project in India, a report by Bloomberg News claimed on Thursday. In February, France-based TotalEnergies, which is one of the largest foreign investors in billionare Gautam Adani's business empire, said it would put its participation in the ports-to-energy conglomerate's $50 billion hydrogen project on hold after the Hindenburg Research came out with a scathing report on its operations.
Jugeshinder Singh, Chief Financial Officer at Adani Enterprises Ltd., has reportedly told investors last week that it is not depending on Total’s equity to build the facility, as per a transcript posted on the company’s website. “We are going ahead with the project as it is and at the same pace.”
Total has previously invested in four Adani firms and their memorandum of understanding on hydrogen still stands, Singh said.
Earlier, the French energy giant had agreed to buy a 25 per cent stake in Adani New Industries Ltd. for an undisclosed sum to help fund green hydrogen projects in the country.
Adani’s first green hydrogen venture is a $5 billion integrated facility, which will include manufacturing plants for wind turbines and solar modules and renewable generation capacity. TotalEnergies had announced its partnership with the Adani group in June 2022.
Both the companies had outlined a capex plan of $50 billion to set up a 2.5 million metric tonnes per annum (mmtpa) of green H2 manufacturing capacity over the next 10 years, with the first phase of 1.0 mmtpa expected to be commissioned before 2030. Though TotalEnergies did not sign a contract.
Singh said Adani Enterprises will invest about $300 million in the hydrogen business in the year through March and this will start to rise rapidly from next year. Overall, the company plans $3.7 billion in capital investment during the year, Singh added.
In February, TotalEnergies, which has an exposure of $3.1 billion in Adani group, said it will wait for the result of an audit launched by the conglomerate in response to allegations of accounting and financial fraud levelled by Hindenburg Research.
As part of the partnership announced in June 2022, ANIL was to contribute its knowledge of the Indian market, execution capabilities, operations excellence, and capital management philosophy, whereas TotalEnergies was to bring its understanding of the global market, credit enhancement and financial strength to lower the financing costs along with expertise in underlying technologies.
ANIL had plans to manufacture green hydrogen and its downstream products such as ammonia, urea, methanol, and ethanol at its Khavda and Mundra SEZ facilities. The Khavda site has a land bank of 71,000 acres, which has a large-scale renewable deployment potential of 20 GW due to its high wind and solar resource potential.
The company plans to use the alkaline and PEM electrolysis process to produce 2.5 million tonnes of green H2 annually (by FY31) at Khavda.
On August 3, Adani Enterprises reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 674 crore for the quarter ended June 2023, rising 44 per cent over Rs 469 crore reported last fiscal.
The company's revenue from operations came was at Rs 25,438 crore, dropping by 38 per cent from Rs 40,844 crore reported during the previous corresponding quarter, the flagship company said in an exchange filing. Adani Enterprises attributed the fall to correction in coal prices.
Other income rose to Rs 371.5 crore in Q1 from Rs 222 crore year ago and supported the rise in net profit.
The company said its Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) increased by 47 per cent YoY to Rs 2,896 crore "on account of strong operational growth".
Earlier this week, Qatar Investment Authority bought a 25 per cent stake in Adani Electricity Mumbai in 2020 and this is the second investment by the fund in the group.
Promoter entities of the Adani group have been selling mall chunks of stakes in group companies to pay down share-backed financing. Earlier, GQG Partners had picked up stakes. In March, Adani said that over $2 billion worth of margin-linked, share-backed loans have been paid off.
In July, Adani Green’s board approved raising Rs 12,300 crore through a qualified institutional placement.
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