Saudi Aramco, the largest oil producer in the world, is keen to have technical tie up with Indian hydrocarbon companies, including the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.
The geophysical consultant of the Saudi oil major, Shiv N Dasgupta, disclosed this here in Kolkata on Sunday. He was here to attend the 6th Conference and Exposition on Petroleum Geophysics.
Dasgupta told top executives of ONGC here that it could share the state of the art laboratory of Aramco with the Indian companies, if the latter was interested.
"We do not know much about the status of the oil industry here in India. It is still insulated. But we are keen to tie up with them," he said.
Later, he told reporters that Aramco was specially interested to have technical tie up with ONGC. However, the Aramco representative made it clear that the Saudi oil major was only interested in a technical tie-up.
"We are not interested in joint bidding for oil blocks here in India. Because our hand is full. We have so many opportunities in Saudi Arabia itself we do not have any plan to go outside. We need technical tie up as there is a shortage of manpower in Aramco," he said.
Aramco handles oil reserves of 265 billion barrels. According to Dasgupta, Aramco had technical tie-ups in many countries including one in China.
"Our success rate of striking oil in known fields is as high as 97 per cent. In case of unknown fields, it is around 90 per cent. It is higher than that in India," he said.
D K Pande, director (exploration) of ONGC, said the Indian hydrocarbon major was open to collaboration with foreign outfits including Aramco. It needs a formal proposal from the Saudi oil major.
"We already have tie up with British Gas, British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil etc., so any such offer is welcome," he said.
Pande said the Indian oil companies are now planning to hire more geophysicists for mitigating exploration risks. "We shall use the conference of Society of Petroleum Geophysicist for hiring geophysicists," he added.
