PSL achieves financial closure for Mississippi venture
Mumbai-based PSL has achieved financial closure of its integrated pipe manufacturing and coating unit at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. PSL is investing $103 million through a JV company PSL North America. It has raised $78 million through the issue of 25-year bonds by the Mississippi Business Finance Corporation. The bonds have a tax-free $68 million tranche and seems to provide substantial cost benefits. The first phase of the project entails setting up an integrated pipe facility to manufacture, coat and internally-line the API grade pipes having large diameters ranging between 24 inches to 60 inches, with a wall thickness of 1/4 inch to 1 inch, and length of up to 80 ft.
IOC to take up LPG distribution in Mauritius
Mauritius has invited Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to develop the marketing and distribution of liquefied petroleum gas within the country. Mauritius plans to increase its LPG consumption from about 60,000 tpa to about 1 lakh tpa. IOC's subsidiary, IndianOil Mauritius (IOML), has already established a storage terminal of 24,000 tpa at Mer Rouge, and is involved in marketing of petrol, diesel, ATF fuel oil & lubricants, along with retailing bunker used by industrial customers through its nine retail outlets and another five, which are to be commissioned by December 2007.
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IOML Pipeline
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RIL in Yemen
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IOML plans to lay a pipeline of 50- 60 km length from its terminal to SSR International Airport in Mauritius to service the growing aviation business. In 2007, IOML in consortium with Shell, Total, Caltex-Chevron, had commissioned a terminal of 19,800 kilo litre at SSR International Airport, at an investment of $16 million.
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RIL bagged its first block, namely Block 9 in Yemen in 2001. Here substantial hydrocarbon reserves have been established. RIL and Hood Energy hold 25 per cent stake in this block, while the remaining is held by Calvalley Petroleum with 50 per cent participating stake.
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RIL bags two oil blocks in Iraq & gets exploration rights in Oman
Reliance Industries (RIL) with the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has bagged two oil blocks - Rovi and Sarta - in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
The blocks measuring 450-500 sq.km. have almost 80 per cent oil bearing structure, and are likely to hold 1 billion barrels of oil reserves. RIL paid a signing amount of $15.5-17.5 million for the two blocks.
Reliance Exploration & Production DMCC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, won the exploration rights for Block 41, which is a deepwater oil and gas block- in Oman.
Block 41 is adjacent to the subsidiary's existing block (Block 18), and is spread over 20,000 sq.km. The Government of Oman awarded Block 18, which is spread over 18,000 sq.km to Reliance in 2005.
RIL signs production sharing agreement for Yemen blocks
On 20 November 2007, Reliance Industries' (RIL), the wholly-owned arm Reliance Exploration & Production (REP) DMCC signed a production sharing agreement (PSA) for exploratory blocks 34 and 37 located in the Jeza basin of Eastern Yemen. RIL holds 70 per cent participating interest in these blocks, while Hood Energy of the UK holds the remaining.
IVRCL acquires Alkor Petroo
On 11 November 2007, IVRCL Infrastructure & Projects signed a share purchase agreement with Alkor Petroo Ltd., and has acquired all shares of Alkor for Rs.6 crore. It also envisaged a payment of Rs.8.5 crore for liabilities and investments, and a further investment of about Rs.200 crore during the exploration phase. Alkor held five exploration blocks in Yemen and Egypt in a JV with Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) and others. It holds 25 per cent participating interest in the Yemen blocks and 20 per cent in the Egyptian blocks. The seismic data in all blocks are expected to be acquired by early-2008.
PFC to float overseas subsidiary to finance power sector
Power Finance Corporation is considering a proposal to float an overseas financial arm to develop infrastructure for the power sector. Once the committee gives its final recommendation, PFC will be given a formal approval to set up an externally focused investment arm or a SOPV The arm will be operated through an overseas international financial centre such as Mauritius, and will leverage India's foreign exchange reserves to provide finance for purchasing machinery and equipment, abroad. The PFC arm will borrow around $5 billion per annum as foreign exchange from Reserve Bank of India. In lieu, PFC will issue bonds to the apex bank. It has been proposed that loans from PFC arm will not be treated as external commercial borrowings.
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