| "With the expansion of our refineries and expectations of strong refinery margins we will need to import close to 60 million tonnes of crude oil a year by 2012," a senior IOC official said. |
| "It thus makes sense to buy an exploration company with producing assets or proven assets." |
| IOC, which is the country's largest company in terms of sales, is scouting for a mid-sized company in . "Although we are in talks with a few companies, it is very preliminary," the official said. |
| He did not disclose the names of the companies that IOC was in discussions with, nor did he divulge the budget that the company had for an overseas acquisition. |
| IOC has a refining capacity of 60 million tonnes an annum (mtpa) and is in the process of ramping it up to 80 mtpa by 2012. |
| The state-owned company aims to produce oil and gas from its own resources, totalling 5 mtpa of oil equivalent by 2012. It does not produce any oil or gas now. |
| "We aim to produce our oil requirements by 2012, so it makes sense to buy a company with proven assets. Acquiring oil and gas exploration acreages, drilling wells, and producing hydrocarbons from there is a long process," the official explained. |
| Acquiring a company with producing assets also minimises the risk in case we do not find oil or gas in a particular block. |
| IOC had attempted to buy French exploration company Maurel & Prom and Burren Energy's Congo assets, but neither materialised. |
| IOC has also evinced interest in buying a stake in a refinery in Edo, Nigeria. But the company says that it will buy a stake in the refinery only if it gets the exploration assets along with with the refinery. |
| High global crude oil prices are pushing up the price of oil and gas assets. |
| "The due diligence process for assets has to be elaborate. The price has to be just right, or it does not make sense to buy it at all," the official said. |
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