Lakshmi N. Mittal wants to buy half of India's Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.'s exploration arm, Prize Petroleum, for about $80 million.

Mittal, whose firm bought a 49 percent stake in HPCL's Bhatinda refinery, is in talks with financial institutions to buy out their 50 percent stake in Prize Petroleum, a company official said.

"He has had looked at a few firms but nothing is finalized just now," the official said.

Besides Mittal, Essar Oil, Jaiprakash Associates and Larsen & Toubro are interested in buying a 50 percent stake in Prize Petroleum. State-run HPCL holds the remaining 50 percent in Prize.

Prize operates Oil and Natural Gas Corp.'s Cluster-7 field and won two exploration blocks in the fourth and sixth rounds of India's New Exploration Licensing Policy auctions.

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 3 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves.  // Copyright 2007 by United Press International



Publication date: 12 November 2007   

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