India should not stay on the margins of this initiative. There should be a serious debate about what would be in India's best interests asserts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Saturday acquired exploration rights to one of the largest deep water blocks in the Sultanate of Oman.
Reliance Exploration and Production DMCC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of RIL, has signed contract for Block 41. The block lies adjacent to Block 18 in Gulf of Oman, which the Government of Sultanate of Oman awarded to RIL in 2005. Block 18 is situated in the offshore Gulf of Oman between Block 41 and the border with the Fujuriah offshore block. The two blocks comprises approximately 21,000 sq km of area each.
Reliance Industries may sell part of its stakes in some of the overseas oil and gas blocks to lower its exploration risk.
The company had assets in countries like Yemen, Peru, Oman, Myanmar, Columbia, East Timor, Kurdistan and Australia, but it exited almost all these blocks later as part of its portfolio rationalisation
Given that India will get a huge part of its oil supplies from Iran through its government-owned oil PSUs, any unwelcome shocks in global crude rates could be absorbed well enough.
Reliance Industries has divested its 30 per cent stake in an oil and gas block in Peru to Australia's Woodside Petroleum and Pluspetrol of Argentina to trim its overseas properties.
Reliance Industries Limited has hived-off its overseas oil and gas projects into a separate wholly-owned company based in Dubai and is eyeing a tie-up with ONGC Videsh Ltd to jointly bid for oil and gas opportunities abroad.
Two projects in Iran, which India is to execute involving major financial commitments on its part, are of particular significance for Indian steel.
Why should India buy olives from Europe when it could do so from the world's largest producers?
As CAG found Reliance Industries was being favoured in gas exploration deal to the government's detriment, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the then top auditor Vinod Rai that audit should not hurt the private sector and RIL was one of the biggest and most respected.
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