RusEnergy

10-31-2006 Kommersant – Seeking access to Russia’s crude, India has suggested setting up a venture of Gazprom and ONGC to develop subsoil of Russia. In return, it has promised to annually buy 50 million tons of crude here, attract Russia’s companies to building refineries in India and a gas pipeline from Iran. But all proposals of India don’t look as attractive as the ones made by China, the analysts speculate.
Yesterday, India's Oil and Gas Minister Murli Deora met Russia’s Energy and Industry Minister Viktor Khristenko. India is willing to proceed to buying 50 million tons in Russia as soon as possible, spokesman of Indian Oil and Gas Ministry announced after the talks. India annually imports 110 million tons of crude and is targeted at attaining 200 million tons by 2015. Russia may cover 50 million tons of this growth, the official said.Yesterday, the energy ministers of India and Russia focused on potential participation of Russia’s companies in projects of India, the Indian bureaucrats said on condition of anonymity. In particular, the Russians are invited to widen refining capacity of Indian Oil Corp (IOC) from today’s 52 million tons a year. IOC intends to boost it by 30 million tons, including by constructing a new refinery, which will annually produce 15 million tons. India will maintain the majority stake in the project, the officials said. India has a few offers for Gazprom as well. Russia is invited to take part in constructing the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline to begin with. What’s more, ONGC is in talks with Gazprom to set up a venture for bidding at tenders held for exploration and production activities in Russia. In essence, this proposal is very close to Vostok Energy, the recently incorporated venture of Russia’s Rosneft and Chinese CNPC set up to explore and produce from Russia’s subsoil. The main thing that prompted Deora to visit Moscow was exactly this venture’s creation, Indian analysts said. “India’s agitation is easy to understand. Chinese companies have recently created a venture with the access to Russia’s subsoil and got Udmurtneft,” explained Alfa Bank analyst Konstantin Baturin. “But China offered advantageous terms of cooperation to Russia. And the price paid for Udmurtneft was unthinkable.