ONGC and its subsidiary Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) will meet all the petroleum requirements of Mauritius, for another years.

The one-year contract between MRPL and Mauritius'' State Trading Corporation, signed in 2006, was due to come to an end in July 2007. MRPL''s managing director R Rajamani and Mauritius STC''s general manager R S Soomarooah signed a fresh contract extending the duration of the supply contract to Mauritius in New Delhi today.

In June 2006, the STC of Mauritius had finalised the import of its entire petroleum product requirement of the country for the first time from MRPL. This works out to an estimated around 1 million tonne gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and furnace oil.

The products, imported by STC from MRPL, are sold to Shell (Mauritius), Total Mauritius Ltd, Caltex Oil (Mauritius) Ltd and IndianOil (Mauritius) Ltd.

Apart from STC of Mauritius, MRPL, which was accorded the mini ratna status by the government, started exporting to other new markets in 2006-07 like Emirate National Oil Company of Dubai, aggregating to 1.5 million tonnes of liquid petroleum products.

Speaking after the signing of the contract, Chairman of MRPL R S Sharma said that notwithstanding hardening of international prices and ocean freight, ONGC-MRPL offers very competitive prices for the global market. Sharma further said that the three-year agreement with STC, Mauritius, was a historic occasion in strengthening mutual economic cooperation between the two countries through respective state-owned organizations.

Apart from STC of Mauritius, MRPL has started exporting 1.5 million tonnes of liquid petroleum to other new markets like Emirate National Oil Company of Dubai, from this fiscal.