‘Adopt ‘no-compete’ approach towards oil projects’

Monday, September 1, 2008 at 2:09 am

With Indo-China rivalry pushing up price of oil properties overseas, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has proposed to Beijing a ‘no-compete’ agreement, while suggesting a collaborative and possibly joint acquisition, approach.

Deora used the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe to suggest to Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi a “collaborative approach for acquiring oil and gas projects so that their costs do not needlessly escalates,” officials travelling with the Minister said.

The suggestion came in the wake of a possibility of a price war over ONGC Videsh Ltd’s 1.42 billion pound takeover bid of UK-listed Imperial Energy that has assets in Tomsk region of the western Siberia in Russia.

Chinas Sinopec was initially interested in Imperial Energy and had made an offer even before it completed due diligence of the company. But after OVL’s offer was accepted by Imperial board, Sinopec announced that it was not considering making a counter offer, putting to rest talks of an Indian-Chinese contest for control of the company.

Officials said Deora suggested to the Chinese minister that collaborative approach would ensure keeping the costs at equitable levels to both the offering and bidding parties. Yang is believed to have reciprocated the suggestion.

Before that, Deora had met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and won Kremlin’s support for OVL’s Imperial bid. OVL’s biggest overseas acquisition so far is contingent upon approval from Kremlin. Deora met Medvedev on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Dushanbe and sought his support of the deal, officials present at the meeting said.

Imperial, a relatively small British oil and gas firm based in Leeds in UK, has oil producing blocks in Tomsk region in Russia and Kastanai in north-central Kazakhstan. The bid values Imperial’s 920 million barrels recoverable oil reserves at around $2.77 per barrel.

Imperial produced 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day at the end of 2007 but plans to raise this to 25,000 by the end of 2008 and to 80,000 barrels per day (four million tons a year) by the end of 2011. (PTI)

( This post is from an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by APakistanNews.Com.)

‘Adopt ‘no-compete’ approach towards oil projects’

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