The Hindu Business Line : Oil PSUs must explore other revenue streams, says Aiyar

THE Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, today said that while the price control regime is expected to continue for some time, State-owned oil companies would have to explore other revenue earning options.

"State-owned companies would have to get used to controlled prices for indefinite period and have to look for revenues through exports," Mr Aiyar said in a teleconference from Bucharest.

Regarding the prospects of Indian companies investing in Romania's refining sector, the Minister said that he has held preliminary discussions with Romanian authorities on the issue.

India is looking at investing in Romanian refineries in order to gain easy access to the oil market in the European Union (EU).

"We are looking at participation in Romanian refineries which have huge spare capacity to access Central Europe and eventually Western Europe."

The Indian companies will acquire stake in Romanian refineries either by participating in the privatisation process or through joint ventures.

On how many refineries Romania has and their capacity, the Minister said that Romania has 10 refineries of which eight are operational, having capacity of 22.3 million tonnes.

The total capacity utilisation of these refineries in 2003 is 49 per cent.

"There is not a single refinery in Romania that is either not available for privatisation or for partnership. The spare capacity of Romanian refineries would be used for exporting petroleum products to the EU."

Romania plans to join the EU in 2007.

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