news India Pushes Hard to Get TAPI Pipeline
Oil Minister Can’t Join Global Energy Pact
New Delhi: Amid of China’s aggressive approach in securing its energy security needs from the Central Asian Region, India has batted strongly for the 1735-km Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India (TAPI) pipeline, which will have a capacity to carry 90 million metric standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd) of gas for a 30-year period, to make the project operational by 2017.
New Delhi: The finance ministry has blocked the oil ministry’s latest push to join the Energy Charter Treaty, saying India would not gain anything by joining the legally binding agreement that would impact states’ rights on subsoil resources and weaken the government’s rights on natural resources in case of dispute with foreign investors.
China had already operationalised its gas pipeline from Turkmenistan and was in the process of initiating work on the second pipeline. Hence, the Ministry of Finance has written to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry and the Indian Ambassador to Turkmenistan that in light of the developments and aggression by the Chinese, India may need to take concerted action to ensure that the pace of implementation of the TAPI project is speeded up.
India-Vietnam Agree to More Collaboration on Oil Exploration
The treaty is an international agreement providing a multilateral framework for cross-border trade, transit and investments in energy and lays down binding dispute resolution procedures. Some 54 countries and the EC are signatories. The oil ministry has two transnational pipeline projects — from Iran and Turkmenistan — on the table as well as gas shipping plans from the US. It feels the treaty will help protect Indian investments, allow free trade in equipment based on WTO rules, transit freedom for oil, gas and power through pipelines or grids and provide a transparent mechanism for stateto-state or investor-to-state dispute resolution.
New Delhi: India and Vietnam have signed an agreement for developing and expanding oil exploration in the South China Sea. In order to expand oil exploration projects in the disputed South China Sea, the two countries have decided to allocate new oil blocks too. Call it a move to enhance the bilateral ties, both the country premiers - Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh and Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam - discussed on a number of topics related to key bilateral and regional issues, apart from signing 7 more pacts.
Policy on Oil and Gas Survey Data Sale likely Soon
The MoU further strengthened the associations of both the countries in terms of exploration, development and production of petroleum resources and new investments by OVL and Gas blocks in Vietnam. On the other way round, India has also invited to participate in open blocks in India and the third countries.
The policy is aimed at attracting global companies for data acquisition. They would get 10-year exclusive rights for selling the data to Indian and foreign oil and gas companies. The government will also get access to the data once it is ready.
Iran’s Deal will Boost India’s Oil Security New Delhi: The truce arrived at between Tehran and six world powers over the former’s nuclear programme is set to end the long-standing payment crisis for Indian oil companies, which are hoping to soon restart paying for crude oil imported from Iran in dollars or euros. According to experts, the development will soon bring down global crude oil prices back to around USD 100 a barrel. However, on the other hand, it will spell doom for Petroleum Minister M Moily’s ambitious plan to save USD 8.4 billion worth of foreign exchange outgo by paying for 100 per cent of oil imports from Iran in rupee terms. Also, the agreement will do away with the need to have a ` 2,000-crore Indian Energy Insurance Pool for covering refineries’ risk in importing crude oil from that country. www.oswindia.com
Mumbai: The government is planning to grant 10-year exclusivity rights for geological data mined through a speculative survey to encourage new business stream in the oil and gas exploration and production sector, informed Petroleum Secretary Vivek Rae. Vivek Rae, Petroleum Secretary, GOI
IOC to Acquire Canadian Shale Gas Asset New Delhi: Indian Oil Corp Ltd (IOC), country’s biggest refinery, is in talks to buy Malaysian state oil company Petronas Dagangan’s 10 per cent in a Canadian shale gas asset. The Malaysian firm, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Petronas International Corp, had in 2011 bought Canada’s Progress Energy Resources Corp in a Canadian Dollar 5.2 billion deal to get the Altares, Lily and Kahta shale gas assets in north-eastern British Columbia. IOC’s plan to take 10 per cent will also include an offtake agreement for the Indian energy company. IOC is looking to expand its protfolio of exploration and producing assets while Petronas wants to share some of its costs. The deal between IOC and Petronas have not yet been finalised as negotiations are far from being concluded.
Offshore World | 40 | OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 2013