Azernews.Az

MUMBAI – India may raise as much as Rs190 billion selling shares in Oil & Natural Gas Corp, the country's biggest energy explorer, and Indian Oil Corp, to help cut its budget deficit.

Indian Oil, the nation's second-biggest refiner, may raise a further Rs100 billion by selling fresh equity to help it fund a new crude oil processing plant it is building, Oil Secretary S. Sundareshan told reporters in Mumbai yesterday.

"The plan is to complete the disinvestments before the end of the fiscal year," Sundareshan said. "It will be Indian Oil followed by ONGC. In the last quarter, hopefully."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants to raise Rs400 billion from asset sales in the year ending March 31 to help fund the construction of roads, ports, hospitals and schools. The government said in January it can sell shares in as many as 68 companies as it seeks to shrink its budget deficit to 5.5 per cent of gross domestic product this fiscal year from an estimated 6.9 per cent last year.

Capacity increase
Indian Oil is building a refinery in Orissa state with an annual processing capacity of 15 million tonnes. The refiner plans to spend Rs145 billion in the financial year ending March compared with Rs135 billion last year to increase capacity, Serangulam V. Narasimhan, finance director, said recently.

ONGC will complete the valuation on BP Plc's assets in Vietnam in a few weeks as it seeks to buy them in partnership with Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, Sundareshan also said.

State-owned ONGC is considering all options for buying partner BP's stake in a Vietnam gas field, Chairman R.S. Sharma said on July 22.

The London-based company, which is raising funds to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, agreed on July 20 to sell fields in the US, Canada and Egypt to Houston-based Apache Corp for $7 billion and plans to dispose of assets in Pakistan and Vietnam.