Israel is said to have offered equity participation in its gas fields to India to counter Iran’s proposal to sell more oil to New Delhi and the country’s decision to continue buying crude from Tehran despite western sanctions.
The offer of forming a joint venture to develop the fields and the sale of natural gas figured in the talks between oil minister Jaipal Reddy and Israeli minister for national infrastructure Uzi Landau, who is also in charge of energy and water resources.
Sources said Israel had expressed willingness to offer equity stakes in its gasfields to state-owned ONGC Videsh — the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation — and in a city gas development project to GAIL (India) Ltd, besides the sale of gas.
Officials said the talks were at a preliminary stage and the modalities had to be worked out.
Israel has recently made a huge gas discovery in the Mediterranean Sea, with the Leviathan fields reserves estimated at 16 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas. The field is expected to start production in 2016. The Tamar field, which has reserves of 8 tcf, is likely to begin production next year.
India, which buys most of its gas from Qatar, Oman and Australia, has been seeking alternative sources after Iran snapped an LNG deal following New Delhi’s vote against its nuclear programme in the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The pipeline from Iran to India through Pakistan has also been shelved because of price and security issues.
Iran continues to be the second biggest supplier of crude to the country and has offered additional oil following US and European sanctions.
The sanctions have hit ONGC Videsh by delaying the signing of a contract to develop the Farzad-B block in Iran, which has an estimated 21.68 tcf in-place reserves, of which 12.8 tcf can be recovered.
ONGC Videsh has invested $36 million in the gasfield, and Tehran has set a deadline for signing the contract.
India will be willing to explore the offer of gas from Israel at a time it seeks to diversify its energy import basket to reduce dependence on a few countries.
A decline in output from RIL’s KG-D6 block has widened the gap between the demand and supply of gas in the country.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment