War notwithstanding, West Asian countries are coming out with new orders and contracts awarded have not withdrawn, said top executives at engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies that operate in the region.
“They (West Asian countries) are coming out with new tenders” So, unlike,, other projects which are many times good to have, but these are need to have projects,” said Vimal Kejriwal, managing director and CEO at KEC International, part of the RPG group in an interaction with the FE.
Why Tenders are Accelerating
Transmission and distribution and advanced defence capabilities will see a lot of focus from West Asian countries, he said.
KEC is majorly present in UAE, Saudi and Kuwait and Oman.and 25% its order book comes from the region. Earlier this month , it bagged its largest composite order in Saudi Arabia including transmission lines, substation and so on and another order in Africa.
” Most of our projects are for renewable power, and so on, which will be more in focus now given that there are problems of hydrocarbons, whether it is in India or anywhere else,” he said
None of the awards have been deferred or delayed because of the war situation, Kejriwal said.
L1 Pipeline
It’s larger peer Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is also seeing new bidding happening .” I think everything is moving as per the plan. We are actively bidding even today. In fact, just four days back, I submitted a very large bid,” said Subramanian Sarma, deputy managing director and president at L&T during a recent media interaction.
“Bidding processes are on, engagement is on. Nothing is disrupted, ” he said, adding If things go well, they will have some new awards next month because they are in that L1 stage , he said .
L1 stage means financial evaluation stage where a bidder has quoted lowest amount to carry out the work and most likely winner.
The region accounted for 37% is its order book in 9MFY26.