India eyes BP Vietnam stake
Thursday, 22 July 2010, 19:43 IST
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Hanoi: India is pitching to buy British energy giant BP Plc's stake in the $1.3-billion Nam Con Son gas project in Vietnam. Oil minister Murli Deora today flew to the Vietnamese capital with the heads of Indian oil firms to lay a claim on BP's stake in two offshore gasfields, a pipeline and power project - together called Nam Con Son. "This is a great opportunity for us. The gasfields were originally allocated to us but because of the foreign exchange crisis of 1990s, we had to farm out (give away) some stake to BP. We will like to get that back," Deora said ahead of his meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and government-run PetroVietnam. BP is considering the sale of fields in Colombia, Venezuela and Vietnam to meet the $20-billion clean-up bill of the worst US spill. It had in June announced a $10-billion asset sale programme to pay the costs of compensating victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused by the blowout of the Macondo well in April. China's CNOOC and Sinopec, as well as Thailand's PTTEP may also be interested in BP's stake in Vietnam's largest gas project. ONGC Videsh, the overseas arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, already has a 45 percent stake in the offshore gasfields where BP has 35 per cent. The balance is with PetroVietnam. A 370-km pipeline ships the gas produced from the fields to onshore power plants. BP has a 32.33 percent stake in the $565-million pipeline, where its other partners are ConocoPhillips (16.7 percent) and PetroVietnam (51 percent). The gas produced from the fields is supplied to a 720MW power plant where BP, NI of Japan and Semb Corp of Singapore have a 33.3 percent stake each. Oil secretary S. Sundareshan said India was interested in taking over BP's stake in all the segments of the Nam Con Son project. While OVL along with state-owned Oil India Ltd may take over the BP stake in the gasfields, gas utility GAIL (India) Ltd is interested in the British energy giant's stake in the pipeline. GAIL and refiner Indian Oil Corporation can together manage the power plants.
Source: PTI
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