India’s ONGC to build US$1.2 bn refinery in Sudan

NEW DELHI, Feb 3, 2005 (Asia Pulse) — Oil and Natural Gas Corp (NSI:ONGC), which is laying a 741-km long petroleum product pipeline in Sudan, will also build a US$1.2 billion oil refinery in the African nation.

“We had previously awarded the work of building a 100,000 barrels per day refinery at Port Sudan to Malaysian firms but the project could not take off. We have now mandated ONGC to build the refinery,” Sudanese Minister of Energy and Mining Awad Ahmed Al-Jazz said.

Sudan wants to build the sixth refinery mainly for export of petroleum products to south and east African countries, he said.

ONGC will build the refinery, which will refine Nile Blend crude oil produced in south Sudan, on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis. It will take 32 months to build the refinery from the date of final signing of thhe concession agreement.

Sudan has also mandated ONGC to build a US$200 million multi-product pipeline from Khartoum refinery to Port Sudan. “Work on the pipeline began last week and is expected to be completed by August 2005,” he said.

ONGC will raise non-recourse finance for funding the two projects.

“This will be the largest non-recourse finance ever raised by an Indian company. We are getting Indian and European banking and financial institutions to fund the projects,” company chief Subir Raha said.

ONGC already has 25 per cent stake in a producing oil field in Sudan called the Greater Nile Oil Project and has interests in two exploration blocks, 5A and 5B. It is eyeing more oil blocks in the African nation.