The International Finance Corporation is the private sector arm of the World Bank GSPC Gas, which is in the business of distributing natural gas to households and vehicles in Gujarat, has lined up an initial investment of $140 million for laying new pipelines for gas and building the infrastructure needed for gas distribution in cities. It may use the IFC fund to partly finance this expenditure.
A consortium of Gujarat State Petroleum Corp and Mumbai-based Essar Group has bid for an oil and gas exploration block in Syria.
Saurabh Patel, energy minister, Gujarat, who has handled the energy portfolio since 2002, speaks to Archis Mohan on GPSC's investment in the KG basin and says the criticism is politically motivated.
Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, the flagship company of GSPC Group involved in exploration and production, has put its public offer plans on a fast track and is aiming to hit the capital markets by May.
UBS Investment Research in its latest report estimated that ONGC and GSPC may get at least $5.5 per million British thermal unit for natural gas they will pump out from their respective Krishna-Godavari basin blocks. RIL is to get a fixed price of $4.2 per mmBtu for gas it would produce from Dhirubhai-1 and 3 fields in KG-D6 block from December-January, for the next five years.
On Friday, Indonesia awarded 22 new oil and gas blocks out of the 25 it had offered for bidding recently. The consortium of Essar E&P and GSPC was awarded the Southeast Tungkal block, industry sources said. Among the other winners were ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp, Australia's Pearl Energy and Worldwide Exploration, China's Sinochem Petroleum, Malaysia's Ranhill Energy and Husky Energy.
The development plan under preparation is for earlier find in KG-8 well in June 2005. GPSC believes it will take two years from the date all approvals are in place, including the one for development plan, which details investments and volumes to be produced, for starting production from the block KG-OSN-2001/3 off the Andhra coast.
Burdened with loans of over Rs 12,000 crore, GSPC has made an investment of Rs 7,000 cr in E&P at the block in the KG basin.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation's largest oil firm, has walked away with half of the natural gas that Reliance Industries Ltd and its partner bp of the UK offered in the latest auction of the fuel used to generate power, produce fertilizer, turned into CNG and used for cooking purposes. IOC got 2.5 million standard cubic meters per day out of the 5 mmscmd of gas auctioned last month, sources with knowledge of the matter said. The oil refining and marketing company, which was the top bidder even in the previous auction of gas from the eastern offshore KG-D6 block of Reliance-bp, bid the volumes on behalf of seven fertilizer plants.
State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Adani-Total Gas Ltd and Shell were among the 29 companies that bid and bought natural gas to be produced from the deepest field in the KG-D6 block of Reliance Industries Ltd and bp, sources said. IOC walked away with almost half of the 6 million standard cubic meters per day of gas sold in an e-auction on Wednesday while state-owned gas utility GAIL bought 0.7 mmscmd, Adani-Total Gas Ltd 0.4 mmscmd, Shell 0.5 mmscmd, GSPC 0.25 mmscmd and IGS another 0.5 mmscmd, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. Reliance-bp on Wednesday held an e-auction for sale of gas from the MJ field in their eastern offshore KG-D6 block after incorporating the government's new marketing rules to give CNG-selling city gas companies first priority over supplies.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi claims to have made India's largest-ever gas discovery but his Canadian partner firm GeoGlobal Resources downplayed the find saying it was premature to quantify reserves.
The company has chalked out a detailed plan for development of its existing KG basin assets after integration with GSPC facilities.
Govt was vary of giving BJP-leader and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi any kind of advantage on the eve of elections in the state.
The approval is required to put through gas sales agreements with customers, which in turn are required to finalise Gas Transportation Agreements with transmission companies.
Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation LNG Limited has roped in Trectebel Engineering for conducting the front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for the former's 6.5 MMTPA (million metric tonne per annum) LNG ((liquefied natural gas) terminal project.
BP and Reliance Industries Ltd are leading the race to pick up a 25 per cent stake in Gujarat State Petronet Corporation and the Adani group's five million tonnes per annum liquefied natural gas terminal at Mundra.
India Gas Solutions Pvt Ltd -- the equal joint venture between the Mukesh Ambani-led firm and Europe's second largest oil firm - is among the three companies shortlisted by Gujarat government for giving out 25 per cent stake in the Mundra terminal.
Keshav Joshi's tongue in cheek look at Narendra Modi's mega plans.
In the season of trading allegations between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat, the opposition party has now turned to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi government's blue chip company Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation alleging huge irregularities to benefit a company engaged in pipeline manufacturing in Kutch.
A better system of operating central and state PSEs, and indeed all commercial activities of the government, would require eliminating the current system that oversees them.
The petroleum ministry has told ONGC to give away 60%stake plus operating control in India's largest oil and gas producing fields of Mumbai High and Bassein to foreign companies, according to an October 28 letter to the state-owned company. Amar Nath, additional secretary (exploration) in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, wrote a 3-page letter to ONGC chairman and managing director Subhash Kumar, saying productivity of the Mumbai High and Bassein & Satellite (B&S) offshore assets under state-owned firm was low and international partners should be invited and given 60 per cent participating interest (PI) and operatorship. This is the second time since April that Nath, who is part of the ONGC management as the longest-serving government nominee director on its board and often considered a potential candidate to replace Kumar next year, has written an official letter, painting a poor picture of the company's performance.
Though Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation officials term it a case of mismanagement, the 'dubious' deal has raised many questions.
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday put state-owned ONGC and OIL on notice saying oil and gas reserves they hold need to be monetised through joint ventures with domain experts or the government will take them away and auction them. Speaking at BNEF Summit, he said state-owned firms cannot indefinitely sit on resources when the nation is a net importer of oil and gas. Despite India bidding out acreages to private and other companies since the 1990s, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) hold a "sizeable number of acreage for years," he said.
The countdown for BG's stake sale in Gujarat Gas Company (GGCL) begins tomorrow. Three months after BG made its intention of divesting its stake clear, over half a dozen potential bidders are likely to submit non-binding bids for BG's 65.12 per cent stake in the country's largest natural gas distributor by sales.
The decision was taken at a meeting last month chaired by additional secretary Sudhir Bhargava and attended by representatives of GAIL and the three OMCs - Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum.
"As on date, GSPC has drilled 15 wells, of which 11 have proven reserves of 10.8 tcf. The gas production in the field, spread across 1,850 sq km, is likely to kick off after two-and-a-half years," Saurabh Patel, the state's energy and petrochemicals minister, informed the assembly. Of the 15 wells, GSPC received success in 11 wells, while three showed no gas flow. Testing in one well is yet to be done.
Adani group has begun the spadework to come up with a mega initial public offering (IPO) aiming to raise about Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) for setting up a power generation capacity of close to 10,000 megawatt in next five years. The company is chalking out investments plans for generating 1,320 mw power in Rajasthan and 2,000 mw at Dahej in Gujarat by 2012.
ONGC holds 26 per cent stake in ONGC Petro-additions Ltd, while state run GAIL has 19 per cent and GSPC has five per cent.
Gujarat State Petroleum Corp Ltd, which discovered India's largest ever gas field last week, plans to start production by December 2007 with an initial output of 10 million standard cubic metres per day.
Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, which has discovered India's largest-ever gas field, is planning an initial public offer of 10-20 per cent of equity to part fund the Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion) investment for beginning the production from the
About two dozen discoveries of the state-owned ONGC, Reliance Industries and the Gujarat State Petroleum Corp (GSPC) in KG Basin alone are languishing for want of right price.
The group plans Rs 30,000-cr oil refinery with IOC; buys Lanco's Udupi power plant for Rs 6,000 cr
"We would like to challenge this government for a debate at any time and any place of their choosing on the 2 years of NDA-BJP Government", party spokesman Manish Tewari told media persons targetting the government over its record in governance.
Benchmark share indices ended flat amid lack of investor participation even as gains in IT majors ahead of their second quarter earnings helped capped downside.
Ramesh says that since the attitude of the Narendra Modi government is deliberately provocative and confrontational, it should not expect cooperation from the Congress.
IOC is building a 5 million tonnes per annum LNG terminal at Ennore near Chennai which is to be completed by 2017.