India clears ONGC’s $200 mln Sudan oil pipeline
NEW DELHI, June 24 (Reuters) – The Indian government approved state-run energy firm Oil and Natural Gas Corp’s (ONGC) $200 million project to set up a petroleum product pipeline in Sudan, Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar told reporters on Thursday.
Earlier this week, Chairman Subir Raha said ONGC (ONGC.BO), India’s most valuable firm with market capitalisation of about $19.2 billion, planned to build and transfer a product pipeline from the Khartoum refinery to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
The pipeline was expected to be more than 1,000 km (625 miles) in length, Raha had said.
ONGC’s overseas investment arm, ONGC Videsh Ltd, already holds equity in oil and gas projects in Sudan, Russia and Vietnam. It has interests in exploration blocks in Iran, Myanmar, Iraq, Libya and Syria as well.
Cash-rich ONGC has so far poured $3.5 billion in overseas projects, boosting its proven reserves to more than five billion barrels.
India, which imports 70 percent of its crude oil requirements, is aggressively investing abroad as output from its biggest domestic fields is declining even as domestic demand for petroleum products rises on the back of a robust economy.
India’s energy demand is growing by more than three percent a year, compared with a global average of less than two percent. ($1 = 45.74 rupees).