"In order to ensure a level playing field and promotion of competition, access to monopolistic infrastructure in the nature of the common carrier system on a non-discriminatory basis and at reasonable tariffs by all entities will need to be ensured," said Indian Petroleum Minister, Mr Ram Naik.
State oil companies such as Indian Oil Corp have built vast tracks of pipelines and private firms entering the oil and gas sector are keen to have access to this so as to avoid the costly building of parallel infrastructure.
In Indian exploration news, the government authorities may offer eight exploration and production acreage areas in third round bidding of the New Exploration and Licensing Policy.
Areas under consideration for NELP-3 include five onshore areas in the north, east, west and centre of the country, two offshore areas off the southwest and southeast coast, as well as one offshore area off the west coast. An estimated US$288 million has already been committed under phase one work in NELP-2 blocks and US$244 million under phase one work in NELP-1 blocks.
BG Group will finalise a new bid in the next two weeks for acquiring a 30 percent interest in three Indian offshore gas and oil fields from the embattled Enron Corp. BG's original agreement with Enron expired due to delays caused by the energy trader's filing the biggest bankruptcy in US corporate history.
Not only does BG Group have to deal with the fallout from the collapse, there is also the problem of operatorship of the offshore fields. The Oil and National Gas Corporation (ONGC) has turned down BG's request for rights to operate the field. ONGC owns 40% in the Panna, Mukta and Tapti fields.
BG's offer to buy Enron's stake in the fields was conditional on being granted the operatorship, with full control over day-to-day management. ONGC's chairman Mr Subir Raha said BG's offer for a cash settlement to give it the right to operate was "not sufficiently responsive" and offered to manage the field itself. BG officials said talks with ONGC on the issue of operatorship are continuing and a resolution could emerge in the next month.
The Panna-Mukta fields have recoverable reserves of 184 million barrels of oil and oil equivalent in gas, and the Tapti gas field has reserves of 96.3 million cubic metres of gas.
