The Hindu Business Line : IOC says no plans for stake in Singapore co

INDIAN Oil Corporation Ltd on Wednesday scotched rumours about its plans to acquire stake in Singapore Petroleum Co. Denying such reports, a senior IOC official told Business Line that the State-owned company was not acquiring stake in Singapore Petroleum.

"We are in no dialogue with anyone. There are no talks of acquiring a stake in the Singapore company," he said. IOC was reported to have been considering acquisition of stake in Singapore Petroleum as part of its plans to become an integrated energy major.

It was reported that one of the financial investor with about 26.5 per cent equity stake in Singapore Petroleum was keen to exit by offloading its entire equity. IOC was said to be in dialogue with the investor, supposedly ING Singapore Pvt Ltd, which as on March 2005 had 26.31 per cent stake in the firm.

The company is listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange and it has a market cap of about $1.1 billion, has 50 per cent stake in Singapore Refinery Corp's 2,73,000-barrels-per-day refinery and owns a 220,000-cu.m capacity oil storage terminal in Singapore.

Besides, it has 39 retail outlets in Singapore with around 18 per cent market share.

Singapore Petroleum is also in aviation refuelling business at Changi Airport, Singapore. In addition, the company has aviation facilities at Taipei, Hong Kong and Bangkok Airports.

It has 15 per cent stake in Kakap gas field in offshore Indonesia and 40 per cent in Sampang field in offshore East Java, Indonesia.

It has 10 per cent working interest in exploration Block 102 and 106 in offshore Vietnam.

Singapore Petroleum also has ownership interest in the $7-billion Trans-Asean Gas pipeline that is to link Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sumatra and Brunei.

An unconcluded deal

Our Chennai Bureau adds:

THE public sector oil major IOC may or may not be interested in acquiring ING Nominees Pte Ltd's stake in Singapore Petroleum Company (SPC), if the denial is anything to go by. But the block of shares, the subject of much speculation, was up for sale last year. However, the deal could not be concluded.

News agency reports last year said that a consortium of Indonesian businessmen under the name of Satya Capital Ltd had contracted to sell a significant block of shares in Singapore Petroleum to China Aviation Oil (Singapore) Corp Ltd (CAO), a Singapore listed company, which supplies jet aviation fuel to mainland China.

The SPC's Annual Report 2004 mentions that the company received a declaration from Satya Capital stating that it was interested in the 115 million shares held by ING Nominees (Singapore) Pte Ltd.

The deal, however, fell through as CAO suffered huge losses (reported to be in excess of S$500 million) in derivatives trading in Singapore. In fact, there were also reports that Satya Capital had initiated legal action for losses suffered, which was subsequently settled out of court. As of the first week of March 2005, Satya Capital continued to be beneficially interested in the block of shares listed as owned by ING Nominees Pte Ltd, according to the SPC report.

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