'ONGC not looking at PetroKazakh'

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation is not looking for a stake in the Canadian company PetroKazakhstan. Shareholders of PetroKazakh approved the $4.18-billion takeover bid from China National Petroleum Corporation, China's largest oil company, late on Tuesday.

"ONGC is keenly interested in Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan, for oil and gas properties. We'll be happy to negotiate for long-term oil and gas assets in Kazakhstan." said ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Subir Raha on sidelines of a seminar in New Delhi today.

ONGC is considering buying oil and gas assets in Kazakhstan, he said.

CNPC had bought the stake in PetroKazakh in a biding round where Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar had alleged "foul play".

Owing to pressure from the Kazakh government, CNPC agreed to sell a 33-per cent stake in PetroKazakhstan to Kazakhstan's state-owned oil company KazMunaiGaz for about $1.4 billion.

CNPC will split ownership of an oil refinery equally with the Kazakh company and has agreed to process a certain amount of crude through the Shymkent facility.

On tie-up with a foreign company for its proposed 15-million tonne refinery at Mangalore, Raha said, "As of date, we have no plans to have foreign participation in our proposed refinery at Mangalore."

The refinery at Mangalore will be in addition to the existing Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd, which is a subsidiary of ONGC. MRPL's refinery has a capacity of 9.7 million tonnes per annum. It is in the process of expanding capacity to 18 million tonnes.

The new refinery will cost around Rs 11 billion per million tonne or around Rs 165 billion, Raha said.