Mittal Steel in oilfield deals with Total, Lukoil

In the first signs of a falling out with ONGC, Mittal Steel is believed to have entered into separate deals with Total of France and Lukoil of Russia for acquisition of oilfields in Africa and Central Asia.

Mittal Steel, which had last year announced its entry into oil and gas business through two joint ventures with ONGC, has on its own, already picked up a 3% stake in Chevron's under-construction $6-billion Olokola Liquefied Natural Gas (OK-LNG) project in Nigeria.

Industry sources said Lakshmi N Mittal is not happy with the progress of ONGC-Mittal Energy Services (OMESL), a JV company that was to trade and ship oil and gas including LNG.

Mittal Steel, in June, had signed a pact with Total to jointly acquire oil and gas properties particulary in Africa and trade oil and gas produced from such fields. Last month, it signed with Lukoil for specific acquisitions in Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan.

The officials of neither Mittal Steel nor Total could be immediately reached for comments.

While the ONGC-Mittal Energy (OMEL) has landed itself three oil blocks in Nigeria, progress on OMESL had been slow due to ONGC's new management losing interest in the venture.

While ONGC has not hidden its reservations on trading in oil and gas with Mittal, it has gone ahead and signed a deal with Hinduja Group for sourcing of LNG and is negotiating an OMEL type of agreement with the multi-billion dollar group.

Sources said Mittal will get 4.5 million tonne per annum of LNG from the OK-LNG venture and is looking at taking stake in big oil and gas projects in Africa and Central Asia.