BPCL to invest Rs 6,000 cr in exploration business

Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) plans to invest around Rs 6,000 crore in the exploration and production (E&P) business over the next few years.

The company already has stakes in nine assets in Australia, East Timor and Oman, through its partner Australia'a Oilex.

The company also owns three assets on the east coast of the country in the Krishna-Godavari and Cauvery basins and a stake in the Kacchar field in Assam.

BPCL Chairman and Managing Director Ashok Sinha told to Business Standard that the company was actively seeking to farm in on oil and gas fields on the east coast "� in the KG and Cauvery basins "� as well as on land resources.

The company was currently on the lookout for assets in Indonesia and North Africa, he added.

The state-run oil & gas major's E&P business has been spun off into a separate company with an authorised capital of Rs 1,000 crore. BPCL has already made investments to the tune of Rs 600 crore.

BPCL holds stakes in two of ONGC's KG basin blocks and in a Cauvery basin block. While ONGC owns 60 per cent in the Cauvery block, BPCL holds the rest 40 per cent. BPCL also has a stake in Premier Oil's Kachhar block in Assam.

The Kachhar block, where Premier Oil of UK is the lead operator, is estimated to have around 2 trillion cubic feet of gas. But the commerciality of the find was yet to be established, the CMD said.

Sinha said exploration in the Cauvery basin block was currently held up owing to non-availability of exploration rigs. The basin with a porous rock bed is estimated to have smaller gas reserves in the region of a few billion cubic feet of gas, but the commerciality of these finds too had not yet established, he added.

The CMD said the company had targeted sale of 5 million tonne of natural gas by 2010-11. It currently sells around 1 million tonne.

"These gas finds, once their commerciality has been established, will help us reach the 5 million tonne target, servicing the growing gas markets in south India, especially around Coimbatore," Sinha said.

BPCL also has four city gas distribution licences "� for Ahmedabad, Sabarkantha and Mehsana (in Gujarat) and Indore "� in addition to Indraprastha Gas in New Delhi. Sinha also said the company was considering the option of putting all the city gas businesses under a holding company.

"But we will look at that only after we have achieved our 5 million tonne sales target," he added.