Oil India is keen on buying global assets, says Talukdar

Oil India , the country's second largest oil explorer is bullish on buying energy assets abroad for which it has lined up a capex of Rs 4000 crore.

Currently, the company with a market capitalisation of over Rs 30,000 crore has presence in over nine countries of which it has recently bought oil wells in Venezuela.

This project which is likely to be operational by 2012 is being jointly developed by an international consortium comprising Petronas, which holds 11% stake, Spain-based Repsol 11%, ONGC Videsh 11 %, IOC 3.5% and Oil India with 3.5% shareholding.

Undoubtedly, the company is keen to increase its assets base can be gauged from the fact that it has set up a battery of experts who are in the final stages of finalising assets which the company wants to acquire globally.

"We are looking at Africa, Australia and Latin America. Our team has already started conducting due diligence for our international projects where we could either own 100% of an acreage or pick up stakes in foreign companies that own blocks in a country where we want to own oil and gas blocks," BN Talukdar, director (operations) at Oil India told moneycontrol.com

Back home, Oil India's exploration and production activities are spread mostly in the North East and it sells its output at government-determined prices, sharing the subsidy burden with the downstream oil companies.

Hence, its shares took a beating last week after the finance ministry said the fuel subsidy outgo for the upstream oil company like Oil India could almost double this fiscal year. Upstream firms bear a third of the revenue loss that oil marketing companies suffer on account of selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at government -controlled rates.

On Tuesday, Oil India shares ended 0.5% down to close at Rs 1,315 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.