NEW DELHI: Indian oil firms are in talks with state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) to acquire a stake in its ADMA-OPCO offshore oil concession when it comes up in 2018, Indian officials said. India, the world’s third biggest oil consumer, has told state oil firms to acquire assets overseas to improve energy security. India imports about 80 percent of its crude needs. ONGC Videsh, Bharat Petroleum, Oil India and Indian Oil Corp. (IOC) are jointly seeking the stake. Two company officials said they wanted 10-12 percent. “We have submitted expression of interest,” IOC head of finance A.K. Sharma told reporters without giving details. State-owned Adnoc said in August it would split its ADMA-OPCO offshore oil concession into two or more areas with new terms to unlock greater value and increase opportunities for partnerships. The existing ADMA-OPCO concession, in which Adnoc has a 60 percent stake that it will retain, produces around 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil and is projected to have a capacity of about 1.0 million bpd by 2021.
Existing shareholders in ADMA-OPCO are BP with 14.67 percent, Total with 13.33 percent and Japan Oil Development Co. with 12 percent. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wants to cut India’s oil imports by 10 percent by 2022, is steering efforts to buy foreign energy assets, taking advantage of low oil prices. During Modi’s visit to the UAE in 2015, the first by an Indian prime minister since 1981, the two countries announced a $75 billion joint infrastructure fund. UAE is India’s fifth biggest oil supplier. Adnoc signed a deal this year to store about 6 million barrels of oil at India’s Mangalore storage site, taking up about half of its capacity.
