Steel baron Lakshmi N Mittal is eyeing to buy half of Hindustan Petroleum Corp's exploration arm Prize Petroleum for about Rs 200 crore.
NEW DELHI: Steel baron Lakshmi N Mittal is eyeing to buy half of Hindustan Petroleum Corp's exploration arm Prize Petroleum for about Rs 200 crore.
Mittal, which made rapid advances in oil sphere this year first with a 49 per cent stake in HPCL's Bhatinda refinery and then partnering the state-run firm for a separate refinery on the east coast, is in talks with financial institutions to buy out their 50 per cent stake in Prize Petroleum, sources close to the development said.
The steel baron is looking for a medium-sized firm, mostly entrenched in E&P. "He has had looked at a few firms but nothing is finalised just now," they said.
Besides Mittal, Essar Oil, Jaiprakash Associates and L&T are other firms interested in buying a 50 per cent stake in Prize Petroleum. HPCL holds the balance 50 per cent in Prize.
Prize operates Cluster-7 field of Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and won two exploration blocks in fourth and sixth round of auction under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP). The company plans to produce about 50,000 barrels of oil per day from Cluster-7 fields and believes its NELP-VI block in Madhya Pradesh holds three trillion cubic feet of gas reserves.
ONGC had found gas in a well drilled on SR-ONN-2004/1 block in the Satpura-south Rewa basin, but could not test the discovery. The block was then offered for bidding in NELP-VI and was won Prize in association with Jaiprakash Associates.
Prize is the operator of the block with 10 per cent stake, while Jaiprakash has the remaining 90 per cent.
Prize has 15 per cent in NELP-VI onland block CB-ONN-2002/3 in the Cambay basin where other partners are GSPC (55 per cent), Jubilant Enpro (20 per cent) and GeoGlobal (10 per cent).
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