India may swap its shares in Sudan crude with Nigeria

NEW DELHI, July 12, 2004 (PTI) — India may consider swapping its share of crude oil from Sudan’s Greater Nile Oil Project (GNOP) with Nigeria – its largest sweet crude supplier (about 11 million tonne per annum).

India has been seeking a term contract with Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC) for at least 2 million tonne of crude oil per annum, but Nigeria has told New Delhi that specific crude allocation could be considered if there were possibilities of its swap with some other crude.

“We are exploring the possibility in view of the availability of ONGC
Videsh (OVL) crude in Sudan and future possibilities of OVL crude in Angola,” official sources said.

Nigerian oil firm NNPC sells crude only on total volume basis and does not make specific crude allocations. In the absence of term contract, all Nigerian crudes are purchased through spot tenders.

OVL’s share of crude from GNOP, where it hold 25% stake, is around 3 million tonne. After paying royalties and other taxes/duties to the Sudanese government, the net take for OVL from GNOP is 1.2 million tonne. Currently, only a very small volume of that is being shipped to India while the rest is sold to China and other countries.