ONGC eyes more oil assets, deals with Shell

Mumbai, Apr 28: The state owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is planning new investments with Royal Dutch Shell Plc and hopes to acquire further oil assets in Brazil and Nigeria.

Announcing this, the company said ONGC, leading energy-hungry Indias drive to buy stakes in foreign fields, will also offer Brazils Petrobras, equity in new refineries in India. The deal would help ONGC bid for more oil and gas projects in the Latin American country.

The company's overseas subsidiary, ONGC Videsh hopes to boost output from its foreign assets to 8.5 or 9 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas by 2010, from 6.6 million tonnes in 2006/07.

Several oil majors have signed such agreements with state firms in India and China, hoping to access two of the fastest growing energy markets.

Global oil majors have been cautious about investing in India, where state controls on fuel prices have made retailing unprofitable, while enthusiasm generated by oil and gas discoveries in India by Cairn Energy and Reliance Industries has been offset by a series of dry wells drilled by others.

The company was in negotiation with Reliance to jointly bid for the latest blocks being offered to explore oil and gas in India.

ONGC has stakes in oil and gas projects in more than a dozen countries including Sudan, Vietnam, Australia, Libya and Russia.

UNI