Engineering its way across

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: biggest inflection point in the lifecycle of Punj Lloyd brand,” according to Louise Sharma, who heads the corporate communication division, came “when we acquired Sembawang Engineers & Constructors, Singapore, and Simon Carves, UK in June 2006.”

Sembawang, although a young company, just 25 years old, had built a good track record in civil work, while Simon Carves, 125 years old, specialised in engineering and petrochemical projects and had major business links in the UK, Singapore, Iran, Russia, Malaysia and the Middle East. Together, the two entities complemented Punj Lloyd’s expertise in turnkey projects for energy and infrastructure sectors.

The foundation of this entity got laid in 1982, when chairman Atul Punj, then 22 years old and a recent passout from Delhi’s Sri Ram college, decided to “digress” from the family’s traditional business in air conditioning and insulation to pipeline construction for oil majors.

Starting from scratch, he won his first “big” (Rs 7.50 crore) project, laying the Bombay-Pune pipeline across Western Ghats from Hindustan Petroleum Corporation in 1983. Established players didn’t want to get into it because of the logistical problems it posed. But for Atul Punj, it was an opportunity to prove his company could deliver.

“Next came tank projects for Bharat Petroleum, leading up to more complex terminal projects for cryogenic LNG tanks,” recalls Sharma.

The first overseas project was Balongan-Jakarta product pipeline in Indonesia (US$ 14.834 million) that came in 1990 and was delivered in December 1993.

Meanwhile, the company also got busy in domestic road infrastructure from Belgaum to Maharashtra (a part of the Golden Quadrilateral network on Jaipur bypass), civic infrastructure (Delhi Metro), more pipeline projects (Bhivpuri section of East West gas pipeline for Reliance) besides also laying oil and gas pipelines in Malaysia, Oman, Turkey, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Libya.

This was indeed an active period when the company was also constructing tunnels (Kallang Paya Lebar, Singapore’s longest road tunnel), flyovers (Yio Chu Kang interchange in Singapore), building airports (the famous Changi airport, Singapore) and high rise buildings (Four Seasons Hotel, Singapore; The Exchange, China; Tianjin International Building and GE Plaza, Pune) and of course Ananda Resort, high up in the Himalayas.

Interestingly, although Punj has no degree in engineering or business, “this has never come in the way of him being able to convey his impassioned engineering vision to each one of us,” says Sharma.