ONGC-GAIL venture plans public issue

ONGC Petro-additions (OPaL), the petrochemicals special purpose vehicle of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, is exploring the option of a public issue to part-finance its Rs 12,500-crore petrochemical chemical complex being commissioned at Dahej, Gujarat.

Dr AK Balyan, Director (Human Resources), ONGC, said at a press meet here on Wednesday that various fund-raising avenues were being considered, of which this was one.

Petronet LNG is keen to take a 10% stake in the project and the OPaL board will take a call on this soon, he said.

ONGC and GAIL (India) have 26% and 19% apiece in OPaL while the Gujarat Government (through GSPC) holds five per cent equity. The petrochemicals complex will have a capacity of 1.1 million tonne.

Dr Balyan said major contracts for the project had been awarded. For instance, the one for the cracker has been given to a consortium of Lindhe and Samsung. The polyethylene technology is being sourced from Ineous in the UK.

RS Sharma, Chairman and Managing Director, ONGC, said that about one million cubic metres of gas (daily) would be supplied to GAIL from the C-series marginal fields from December 1. The fields are located 60 km west of Daman in the Tapti-Daman block of Mumbai offshore.

The company plans to ramp up production in a year to three million cubic metres, he said.

Sharma also confirmed that Mittal Investment Sarl (promoted by Lakshmi Mittal) had pulled out of Satpayev Exploration block located in a hydrocarbon prolificregion of the North Caspian Sea on the south-western coast of Kazakhstan.

Taken from Business Line