Indian Firms Plan to Sign Oil Deals with Rosneft
India plans to sign energy deals with Russian oil major Rosneft next week to buy stakes in Siberian fields, two sources privy to the deal said, as New Delhi accelerates a push to secure overseas energy assets. India, the world's third biggest oil importer, has to ship in three quarters of its oil needs and a substantial fall in oil prices has added an extra incentive to seal purchases of assets that are now relatively cheap to limit its reliance on imports. Rosneft's Chief Executive Igor Sechin will visit Delhi on March 15-16 to stitch together the deals, the sources said. Rosneft, the world's biggest listed oil company by output, also…
India to Talk Sanctions, LNG Imports During Obama Visit
India will use an upcoming visit by Barack Obama to press the United States to remove Indian oil companies from a list naming firms doing business in Iran, and to seek priority access to U.S. LNG exports, sources in the Oil Ministry said. The U.S. president will arrive in New Delhi on Jan. 25 and hold discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited Washington in September. An official agenda has not been released. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) listed three Indian companies as having commercial activity in Iran's energy sector in a report this week, potentially making it difficult for them to do business with other countries, mainly the United States.
India’s Shipping Companies Look to Offshore Investments
With the boom in the oil and gas exploration sector, fueled by the recent awarding of new blocks under NELP VI, Indian shipping companies are tanking up to sharpen their focus on the offshore segment. Only last month, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) came out with a tender for chartering of around 26 offshore supply vessels, with mobilization requirement up to the third week of November. Shipping companies such as Great Eastern Shipping, Varun Shipping and Mercator Lines have lined up significant investments in this sector in the current fiscal. In fact, the boom in the offshore sector is one of the reasons that prompted GE Shipping to de-merge its offshore division into a separate company, Great Offshore Ltd, to get higher valuations from this business.
Offshore India Heats Up
U.S.-based Hardy Exploration and Production (India) Inc. has revived a declining oil field off India's southern coast and increased its output by over 2,000 bpd. Hardy Exploration's chief executive, Sastry Karra, said his company drilled India's deepest horizontal well of about 1,200 m to revive the PY-3 field and step up its output to 5,600 bpd from 3,600 bpd. "This lateral well flowing a light crude of 49 API and another one we are starting to drill today should extend the life of the PY-3 field by several years at least," Karra said. In April, Karra told Reuters the firm was likely to spend about $16 million for drilling two new lateral wells and using water injection technology to extend the life of the declining field -- then producing 4,000 bpd -- by another five years.
