Andhranews

New Delhi, Sept. 15: A total of 66 companies, including 35 foreign and 31 Indian companies, have bid for the 55 oil and gas blocks offered under the sixth auction of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP).
ONGC has bid for a maximum number of oil and gas blocks — 45 blocks. Three deepwater blocks KK-DWN-2004/2, KK-DWN-2004/3 and AN-DWN-2004/1 have not received any bid. For 13 blocks, only single bids were received and out of these, ONGC is the single bidder for seven blocks and Essar for two. Thirty-nine blocks attracted multiple bids. One block, CB-ONN-2004/3, received 10 bids.

“The government has received 165 bids for 52 blocks by the closing date on Friday,” said Mr Anil Razdan, additional secretary, petroleum and natural gas ministry. “One of the major achievements of NELP-VI has been that besides having received bids for 21 deepwater blocks, bids have been received for all the 12 frontier on-land blocks,” said Mr Razdan. He further said that the renewed interest of multinationals BG, BP, Petronas, ENI and TOTAL augurs well for the oil and gas exploration activity underway in India.

The government had offered 55 exploration blocks under the sixth round, this year on February 23, covering an area of 3.52 lakhs sq kms. Out of the 35 foreign companies, who have bid for the blocks, 20 are new companies. Malaysia’s Petronas bid for one shallow water block in prospective Krishna Godavari basin. Cairn Energy of UK made lead bids for seven blocks on its own and was junior partner in five others.

However, big players Chevron, ExxonMobil and Conoco Philips of US, who were expected to partner Reliance Industries, did not participate. “ “As India is new to these companies, they require more work to convince their boards to invest here,” said V.K. Sibal, DG Hydrocarbons. ONGC was the lead consortium bidder in 35 blocks and a junior partner in 10 blocks while state-owned Oil India Ltd (OIL) was leader in 9.

Reliance Industries have bid for 21 blocks. RIL bid for 17 deep-sea and blocks each in shallow water and onland. It took state-owned Oil India Ltd as partner in one Mahanadi basin deep-sea block. The Anil Ambani Group firm, Reliance Natural Resources Ltd, tied with Naftogaz of Ukraine to bid for 9 blocks.

Hyderabad, Sept. 15: Strong economic growth in South Asia is creating “political space” for much-needed policy and institutional reforms to accelerate and sustain growth, and tackle long-standing social and economic problems, according to a World Bank report. The report, to be discussed on Saturday at the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Singapore, says strong growth has created an unprecedented opportunity: a chance of ending poverty in a generation in South Asia, the region with the world’s largest concentration of poor people.

“This is an opportunity that cannot be missed,” said Mr Praful Patel, World Bank vice-president for South Asia. “For the leadership of South Asia it is the chance of a lifetime. And for the poor people of South Asia, it is a real chance to emerge from destitution.” The report obse-rves that recent economic growth has made it possible for South Asian countries to address politically-difficult reforms.

“More info-rmed public debate about what works and what doesn’t combined with global experience is emerging as an important force for change in South Asia,” said Mr Shantayanan Devarajan, co-author of the report and World Bank Chief Economist for South Asia.

New Delhi, Sept. 15: World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz’s assurance of Singapore agreeing to reconsider the blacklisting of 27 activists, including Indians, at the September 19-20 World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings, came a little late in the day. More than 160 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) declared a boycott of the meetings to protest against a clampdown on free speech.

“On Thursday night, the Prime Minister said that based on the Bank and the Fund vouching for these people, that they would look at each case individually and open the door to let them in,” Mr Wolfowitz said. “I hope that will happen expeditiously and completely and we’re waiting for further developments.” Mr Wolfowitz said he raised the matter during a meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Thursday.

“It is really unfortunate that the government of Singapore seemed not to be honouring the memorandum of understanding to admit delegates that were accredited,” he said. The organising committee on Thursday said they had “security and law and order concerns” over the 27 individuals, some of whom had been involved in violence at other international meetings. The activists had been accredited as part of an official dialogue which the Fund and the Bank engage in with their critics.

“In solidarity with those denied entry into Singapore, we will stay away from all meetings and seminars at the World Bank and IMF 2006 annual meetings in Singapore,” they said. The Singapore government also deported an Indian activist who had come here in connection with the annual meetings. Meanwhile, the IMF was confident that its proposal for ad-hoc increase in powers of China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey in the fund’s board would be carried through, but India, Brazil and 50 other developing nations opposed the move saying it was based on a “flawed” formula.

“What is clear is that there was a very clear majority in the board to endorse the resolution, if not, it would not have been brought here,” IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato told reporters here in Singapore. He, however, said that he cannot definitely say anything until the countries have expressed their votes. “I have to keep some respect, if you want silence in that respect, for the time being.”

Mumbai, Sept. 15: The Sensex ended marginally higher up 36.57 points after a choppy session, but closed above the 12,000 mark for the first time at 12,009.59. It is not a convincing close and the performance of the index next week will show whether it can sustain above the 12,000 mark. It had hit an intra-day low of 11,847.61 and a high of 12,041.70. The Nifty closed at 3478.60, up 7 points after touching a low of 3434.55 and a high of 3487.45 intra-day. The turnover on both the exchanges was Rs 33,353 crores with the F&O sector accounting for Rs 23,045.57 crores.

Mumbai, Sept. 15: In a precursor towards consolidation of banks, three medium-sized public sector banks — Oriental Bank of Commerce, Indian Bank and Corporation Bank — have come together to share infrastructure and explore opportunities. A memorandum of intent to this effect was signed by the chairmen of the three banks here on Friday.

This alliance, christened Oriental Indian Corporation (OIC), aims to mitigate the disadvantage of size which medium-sized banks suffer from, while sharing benefits of economies of scale and provide all forms of money and financial services under one roof. Addressing reporters here, the chairmen of the three banks, K.N. Prithviraj (OBC), K.C. Chakrabarty (Indian Bank) and B. Sambamurthy (Corporation Bank) emphasised that “this alliance is not a merger and the three banks retained their independent legal entities.”

The alliance, which will work out the operational details in the next few months, will broadly focus on sharing treasury and IT resources, building an e-payment system, besides creating a new capital markets machinery, which ultimately will include an Asset Management Company, Venture Capital, wealth management and equity brokerage. The banks will be “preferred partners” of each other, the chairmen said, adding that in business syndication, for example, “This alliance will facilitate us taking exposures to big-ticket deals which as individual bank we might not have been able to.”

The three banks will also share training resources, economic research and marketing besides engaging in common procurement of IT and other assets, wherever feasible. The alliance has also identified bancassurance as an area where there could be collaboration and co-operation. “We will also look at any other mutually acceptable and beneficial areas,” they said.

The alliance was the next best option to a merger, which, in the present circumstances was a difficult proposition, Mr Chakrabarty of Indian Bank said. According to him, with this alliance, geographies of the three banks would become integrated and there will be considerable savings in both time and costs.

Hyderabad, Sept. 15: The first challenger to Tata Ace’s supremacy in the mini pick-up segment is out on the roads from the Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) stable. Christened MaXX Maxi Truck, the new variant fills the gap between large three-wheeler and big pick-ups, and senior company executives claim that the “vehicle is going to shake-up the small cargo segment.”

Major players, including Bajaj Auto, Force Motors and Atul Auto, are developing vehicles that can take on the Tata Ace even as M&M has made the first move. The segment, growing at 22 per cent per annum, is 1,50,000-vehicle strong and is primarily dominated by the Tata Ace.
Mr Vivek Nayer, vice-president (marketing), M&M Auto, is confident of the superiority of both the vehicles in terms of power, speed, fuel economy and load-carrying capacity.

“The MaXX Maxi Truck is a much better entry-level product and it is better equipped with the ability for more turnarounds in a day which is important for the customer,” Mr Nayer said here on Friday. While the MaXX Maxi Truck is priced at Rs 3,40,900, the Bolero Pick-Up FB will be sold for Rs 4,52,200 and has been positioned to cater the higher-end cargo segment. With these two vehicles, Mahindra & Mahindra expects to increase its share in the small cargo segment to 50 per cent from the current 35 per cent, Mr Nayer said, without mentioning a timeframe.

On the other vehicles of the M&M group, Mr Nayer said, “After the upgradation of the Scorpio early this year, sales have jumped significantly. We sold 3,500 Scorpios last month when the competition managed sales in 100s for their SUVs.” Further, in a clear departure from the region specific launch model adopted by Tata Motors for its Ace, M&M has decided to launch the MaXX Maxi Truck throughout the country within 10-15 days. After evaluating the sales in the local market, the company is also open to export the vehicle, Mr Nayer added.