INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - FEBRUARY 2007
The Month that was ...

OILCOS CLOSE TO BAGGING BIG PROJECTS IN LIBYA

INDIAN oil companies are set to clinch major business deals in Libya. While public sector ONGC and Oil India-IndianOil combine are expected to get stakes in discovered oil blocks in the country, Indian companies having expertise in gas pipeline business may get city gas projects in Tripoli and Sana'a.

"An official team (from Libya) would be visiting India to study city gas distribution projects in Delhi and Mumbai," petroleum minister Murli Deora told after a five-day visit to Libya and Yemen. He said that expertise of both public and private sector companies would be availed for implementing proposed city gas distribution projects in cities of Libya.

"Libya has also assured me that visa problem of Indian businessmen would be resolved," he said. Mr Deora had an hour-long meeting with Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi. Mr Deora said that during his visit to Yemen, its President Ali Abdullah Saleh assured him that he would consider allocating more exploration blocks to the Indian oil companies. Mr Deora informed the President that the Indian oil PSUs are keen to make greater investment in Yemen in the entire hydrocarbon chain and would examine the scope to increase oil PSU funding of training Yemeni personnel in their stateof-art training facilities back home.

India has agreed to provide all assistance to Yemen in standardising its bidding system for exploration blocks, which include developing a dedicated software suitable for Yemeni conditions, he said.

It has also discussed that ONGC could join Yemeni companies to develop the discovered fields.