Honda Motors to set up second car plant in Rajasthan
New Delhi: Honda Motor Co has zeroed in on Rajasthan to set up its second plant in India and has signed a letter of intent with the State Government to this effect. The new plant, which will have an initial capacity of 50,000 units, will be set up at an estimated cost of about Rs900 crore.

The company, which operates in India through a joint venture Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI), said the new plant will come up in an area of 500-700 acres and will see an investment of $200 million from the company. The facility would be used for manufacturing small cars, currently under development.

State officials, however, maintained that total investment of Honda Motors, including investment by the company vendors in the ancillary units would be around Rs2,000 crore. Apart from the manufacturing unit, the new plant will also have a suppliers' park, which will house Honda's network of ancillary units.

The project is claimed to be the first of its kind for Rajasthan that will lead to industrialisation with both upstream and downstream investments, as well as large-scale employment generation.
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Indian Oil's retail plans in Indonesia put on hold
New Delhi: Indian Oil Corporation has decided to puts its petroleum retailing plans in Indonesia on hold. However, the company may continue with its lubricant distribution business in Indonesia. IndianOil was looking at launching its retail outlets in Indonesia by floating a fully owned subsidiary. If the plans had materialised this would have been IndianOil's third retailing venture abroad. IndianOil entered the Sri Lankan market in 2002 through Lanka IOC. The Indian petroleum marketing major also has a presence in Mauritius through its subsidiary IndianOil Mauritius.

Currently, Indonesia-the leading petroleum market in the ASEAN region - is estimated to have 50 million tonne per annum of petroleum products. For tapping the opportunities in Indonesian petroleum retailing industry, IndianOil had also taken its board's approval to set up a fully owned subsidiary. Besides auto fuels, the Indonesian venture was to retail lubricants.

The Indonesian Government owns 70 per cent stake in the petrochemical company.
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ONGC, Cairn to reach agreement on Rajasthan pipeline
New Delhi: State-owned ONGC and Cairn India are reaching an agreement to build a pipeline to transport crude oil found in Barmer, Rajasthan to a nearby port city. Sources said a feasibility study on the technical aspects of the pipeline is currently going on, as the crude from Rajasthan requires a proper heating arrangement apart from which a route survey was also being undertaken. The crude from Rajasthan is heavy with high wax content and requires specialised pipelines to transport it from Barmer. The feasibility study would also bring out the issue of cost recovery and the size of pipeline that is required.

Sources said the pipeline cost would be part of the field development plan for the Rajasthan fields, as this would be recoverable.

Sources said that like the cost for developing Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya fields, the pipeline investment would also be shared between Cairn and ONGC in a 70:30 ratio, which is the current equity structure of the two companies in the fields.
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Tata's in talks to buy Sri Lanka's Suntel
New Delhi: The Tata group, which through its international arm, VSNL Global, recently bagged international long distance (ILD) and internet service provider (ISP) licences in Sri Lanka, is said to be in talks to acquire Sri Lanka's premier private telecom operator, Suntel.

The group is hoping to expand inorganically to become an integrated telecom player in Sri Lanka. VSNL is said to be planning to change its business model in Sri Lanka and from an inbound voice business currently, the company wants to enter the outbound voice traffic and data, and enterprise businesses. If the deal is successful, Suntel will become VSNL's third telecom service provider outside India.
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Tata's likely to revise Corus takeover offer
London: As the last date comes closer for the finalization of bids for Corus by the market is expecting Tata Steel to make a fresh offer for the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker. The UK stock market is anticipating a new proposal from Tata Steel that would beat the 5.9 billion pound offer from Brazil's CSN. The report cited unnamed sources as saying a new bid was possible this week, although under a timetable set by the UK Takeover Panel, Tatas have until the end of January to decide.

Reports in the British media said Ratan Tata is preparing to increase his offer to 550 pence a share, which is well above the 515 pence bid from CSN chairman Benjamin Steinbruch.
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Hinduja's enter into JV with ONGC for Mangalore proj
Mumbai: The Hinduja group has entered into a joint venture with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation to partner in developing the proposed Mangalore petrochemical and petroleum special investment region.

The JV will also encompass upstream exploration activities, Ashok Hinduja chairman of the group's Indian companies said. This will be the group's first major investment in the Indian oil and gas sector.

The largely-privately held group may consider investing up to $4 billion in the Mangalore project. The Mangalore SEZ has been evaluated at $8 billion.

The two companies are also planning to rope in the Qatar Gas Company to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the project. A team from both companies had visited Qatar last week and made presentations to the Qatari authorities for the supply of 5 million tonne of LNG for the Mangalore petroleum SEZ.

Qatar, which holds the largest gas reserves in the world has already signed up to supply 7.5 million tonne of LNG to India for Dabhol and other power projects, including NTPC's Kawas project.

ONGC's subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical Limited (MRPL) is expected to be the anchor developer in the Mangalore SEZ. ONGC has already announced that the capacity of the MRPL refinery is being ramped up from the current 7.5 million tonne to 12 million tonne.
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Sterlite reports Q3 net profit at Rs1,293-crore
Mumbai: Sterlite Industries has reported a consolidated net profit of Rs1,293.01 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2006 when compared with Rs395.03 crore in Q3FY06.

According to a release issued by the company, total income moved up to Rs7,000.73 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2006 as against Rs3,570.72 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005.

The company, on a stand-alone basis, has posted a net profit after tax and exceptional items of Rs214.79 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2006 when compared with Rs150.24 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005. Total income stood at Rs3,219.86 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2006 as against Rs2,178.43 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005.
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Amtek Auto renews bid to acquire UK company
Mumbai: Amtek Auto plasma is planning to renew its bid to acquire JL French Automotive Casting's Whitham plant in Essex in the UK, six months after its first abortive attempt.

Sources the talks between the two parties were at a preliminary stage and Amtek might take some time to table a formal bid for the plant.

Sources said the sale of the plant was complicated as the acquirer wanted assurance from Ford Motors, JL French's main customer, that it would continue its contract with the plant post-acquisition.

The administrator of the plant, BDO Stay Hayward, would look for a quick solution as delay in selling the plant might force it to pull down shutters.
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Tata in race for Daewoo Romania
Mumbai: The Tata group has set its eyes on Daewoo Automobile Romania, and may compete against global automobile giants like Ford and Renault-Nissan. The Romanian government last week constituted a commission to devise an expeditious and transparent auction and Tata group would soon begin examining the company.

Industry watchers said bidding for Daewoo Automobile Romania, which can produce 100,000 cars, 150,000 engines and 200,000 trans-axles, would heat up because of interest from global automobile giants and the Tata group, which is in the middle of a bidding war with Brazil's CSN for the Anglo-Dutch steel-maker Corus, could have to bid aggressively.

Daewoo Automobile Romania makes a range of Daewoo vehicles like the Matiz, Cielo, Nubira and Tacuma, and 1.5 litre petrol engines.
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GATI ties up with China Logistics
Mumbai: Gati Limited has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China Railway Express International Logistics Company (CREIL), a market leader in China, for rail and road cargo and package delivery.

The tie-up is expected to provide exporters and importers the opportunity for end-to-end connectivity in India and China markets.

Gati has delivery capability in 594 districts out of 602 districts while CREIL has pan China presence in 500 cities across all 31 provinces.

Gati officials said the MoU would enable both companies to complement each other's extensive network, multimodal capability, mechantronic warehouses and a large base of customers in India and China.
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Compaq signs deal with Star for KBC-3
Mumbai: Compaq has signed an agreement with Star India to be a part of the popular KBC-3 quiz show and is believed to have paid around Rs2 - 2.5 crore for the integrated promotion of its PC on the show.

Last year, for KBC-2, Lenova managed to strike a last minute deal by paying around Rs60-70 lakh, sources said.

The new version of KBC is slated to hit the small screen on January 22 and will continue for 52 weeks before ending April 22.

Apart from the ten main sponsors the channel has ropped in for a whopping sum of around Rs130 crore, Airtel, Hyundai and Cadbury, UTI Mutual Funds, Videocon, Godrej Sara Lee, Jyothi Labs, Pantaloon Retail (Big Bazaar) and UB group, Motorola, other sponsors on board with KBC3 are Bharat Matrimony, Bharti Airtel, Eureka Forbes and Union Bank.
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