The Hindu Business Line : ONGC eyeing assets in Central Asia

OIL & Natural Gas Corporation on Friday said that it was keen on buying assets in Kazakhstan. The ONGC Chairman, Mr Subir Raha, said: "We are pursuing opportunities overseas. ONGC is keenly interested in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan for oil and gas assets."

Recently, ONGC lost a bid to buy a stake in the Canadaian firm PetroKazakhstan Inc to China National Petroleum Corporation. Mr Raha was speaking to newspersons on the sidelines of an Assocham conference here.

Regarding foreign participation in its Mangalore refinery project, Mr Raha said, "As on date, we have no plans to have foreign participation in our proposed refinery at Mangalore."

ONGC was planning to set up a 15-million-tonne refinery at Mangalore. The new refinery would be in addition to the existing Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), which is a subsidiary of ONGC. MRPL's refinery has a capacity of 9.7 mt per annum, and is in the process of expanding capacity to 18 mt.

The new refinery will cost around Rs 1,100 crore per mt or roughly Rs 16,500 crore , Mr Raha said.

Speaking about ONGC's Australia plans, Mr Raha said, "We drilled a dry well in Australian block, and, therefore, the company's board has decided to abandon the block." ONGC Videsh Ltd had invested about $6-7 million in the block. Last year, OVL had acquired 55 per cent stake in the exploratory block — WA 306 P in offshore Australia from Antrim Energy Inc of Canada.

The block was located in the North West Shelf in offshore Australia. The other partner in the block was Magellan Petroleum Pty. Ltd of Australia.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page