Oil India defers public issue again

Public sector company Oil India (OIL) has deferred its initial public offering (IPO) for the second time due to the volatile market conditions. The IPO will now be launched in the next financial year.

OIL, the nation’s second biggest state-run explorer, was scheduled to launch its IPO of 2.64 crore equity shares on November 10, but the stock market conditions prompted the company to defer its plan further. Earlier, the public issue was held up for over a year due to the lack of independent directors on its board.

“We have decided to defer our IPO in consultation with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Department of Disinvestments. We are watching the market condition at present and whenever the market gets stable, we shall launch our IPO,” said S Ananthkumar, chief financial officer, Oil India.

The capital market regulator’s nod for the IPO is valid until September 2009. The government holds 98.13 per cent stake in OIL, which produces around 4 million tonnes of crude oil annually. Along with the IPO, the government will offload 10 per cent of its shares to the three oil marketing companies — Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation — as a pre-IPO placement. The government had planned to divest part of its stake in public sector companies to raise funds for various social programmes.

Firm may invest Rs 800 cr to develop Assam block
NewsWire18 adds: Oil India is planning to invest about Rs 800 crore over the next three years to develop its recently acquired oil and gas block at Mechaki, Assam, Chairman and Managing Director N M Bora said today. 

“We need to drill about eight to 10 wells. The complete development plan should be ready in a month. We are already signing supply contracts for oil & gas produced from the block,” he said, adding that the it was the deepest onshore find in the country.

Cairn finds gas reserves
BS Reporter adds: Cairn India, a unit of UK explorer Cairn Energy, has made an oil and gas discovery near its Raageshwari oilfield in Rajasthan, the company said in a filing to the BSE.

"The discovery is located about 1.5 km east of the Raageshwari 1 well in the southern part of the Mangala, Aishwariya, Raageshwari and Saraswati development areas.