Oil giants vie for stake in KG gas fields
10 Jul 2006
Global majors Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and the BG Group are among a dozen companies bidding for up to 30 per cent stake in Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation's (GSPC) gas fields in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin.
The KG gas fields operated by GSPC have estimated reserves of 20 trillion cubic feet (tcf). Reliance Energy has discovered 35 tcf of gas reserves in a nearby field.
The winner will jointly operate the field with GSPC, which has an 80 per cent stake in the field. The bids are currently under evaluation and the deal will be finalised soon, repots quoting government officials said.
Others in the fray are: Brazil's Petrobras, Malaysia's Petronas, Italy's ENI, Norway's Statoil, Spain's Repsol YPF, Canada's Husky Energy and United Arab Emirates-based Crescent Petroleum, government sources said.
Canada's
Geoglobal Resources and India's Jubilant Enpro are also
stakeholders in the KG gas fields.
GSPC, which began gas and oil exploration six years
ago, lacked the required expertise to develop the field,
which has a complex geology
and needed an active partner. It plans to invest Rs1,700
crore ($376m) in the gas fields and expects to start
production by 2008.
GSPC also plans to go public this year.
Oil majors are increasingly looking for new markets and new sources as the Middle East and Russian oil fields go off-limit.
