GAIL India plans petrochem project in Colombia

GAIL India, India’s largest gas marketer and transporter, today said it wanted to set up a ‘mega’ petrochemical plant in Colombia and may bring Reliance Industries (RIL), with whom the state-run firm already has an agreement to put up production facility overseas, as joint venture partner.

“We want to set up a petrochemical plant and a gas pipeline network in Colombia,” said GAIL Chairman and Managing Director UD Choubey. However, the proposal is only at an initial planning stage and details regarding production capacity, investment and time frame have not been worked out yet.

POWER FACTOR

India's largest gar marketer and transporter may bring RIL, with whom the state-run firm already has an agreement to put up production facility overseas, as JV partner

 

 

Details on production capacity, investment and time frame have not been worked out yet

Colombia’s Minister of Energy and Mines Hernan Martinez Torres, who is in India on an official visit, said there had been no formal expressions of interest from GAIL or Reliance as yet, but they were looking forward to Indian participation in industrial development of Colombia. The country is growing at around 7 per cent per year.

At present, the South American country has no petrochemical production facility. Columbia produces around 600,000 barrels of oil per day – around half of India’s daily consumption – and it exports half of it.

ONGC’s interest in Colombian fields
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) Chairman and Managing Director RS Sharma said the company, through its overseas arm ONGC Videsh (OVL), was seeking more oil and gas blocks in Colombia. The company, he said, would participate in the latest round of auction there. Colombia is offering 43 blocks in the auction, which is likely to close in November.

Colombia is open to giving some oil and gas exploration blocks on a nomination basis to interested companies, according to Torres. “We have earmarked a few areas for auction, while some other for nomination,” he said.

OVL already has a 50 per cent stake in a Colombian oil block which produces 25,000 barrels per day. The remaining stake is held by Chinese company Sinopec. The block is operated by a company called Mansarovar. The block was earlier operated by Omimex de Colombia which was later acquired by OVL and Sinopec jointly.

OVL also has stake in three other exploration blocks in the country.