India's NTPC $2.81 billion power plant may face supply issues from Russian entities -minister

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - NTPC Ltd's $2.81 billion coal-fired power plant, which is currently under construction in India, may face supply issues from Russian entities, India's power minister said on Thursday.

The 2,000-megawatt project being built in the eastern state of Bihar depends on Russian entities for materials as well as technical advice, Raj Kumar Singh told parliament.

He did not give the names of the Russian firms involved in the project.

"Supplies of balance equipment/material from Russian entities may get affected. Visits of engineers/technical advisors from Russia for project commissioning activities may get affected," Singh said.

Singh also said that the project faced difficulty in payments and renewal of bank guarantees for Russian entities due to the exclusion of Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments system.

Western countries have excluded several Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system, a dominant system underpinning global financial transactions, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation.”

($1 = 75.9000 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Aftab Ahmed; Editing by Mark Porter)