India, Russia to sign hydrocarbon pact

India and Russia are expected to sign an agreement on cooperation in hydrocarbons during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's upcoming visit, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada has said.
Prasada, who is a part of the high-level team for the Road show on the 9th round of New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), said that the agreement on Indo- Russian cooperation in hydrocarbons will "identify the oil and natural gas projects and set a time-frame for their implementation."
"The Additional Secretary Sudhir Bhargava is holding talks with the Russian Deputy Energy Minister to finalise the bilateral agreement to be signed during President Medvedev's New Delhi visit," Prasada said, declining to divulge the details of new hydrocarbons deal with Moscow.
Noting India's 'successful' participation in Sakahlin-1 production sharing agreement (PSA) operated by Exxonneftegas and acquisition of Imperial Energy by OVL - the overseas operations arm of ONGC in Siberian region of Tomsk, Prasada, however, reaffirmed India's interest in picking stakes in Sakhalin-3 offshore and huge Trebs and Titov onshore projectsin Russia.
He expressed New Delhi's interest in inviting the Russian oil and gas majors for bidding in the 9th round of NELP and is scheduled to hold meetings with Gazprom, Rosneft, TNK-BP and Bashneft, which has won the bidding for Trebs and Titov deposits in North Russian Timano-Pechora in the Arctic Circle during his three-day Russia visit.
Talking about Gazprom's overseas arm- Gazpromzarubezh, which in partnership with the Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL), is exploring offshore block in the Bay of Bengal, Prasad said India was interested in such bilateral projects.
"We are interested in bilateral cooperation with Russia in upstream and downstream projects, which are under negotiations," he said.
According to Prasada, Moscow is the first city where investors meet for the 9th round of NELP has been organised. Later such road shows will be organised Singapore, Perth, Houston and Calgary.
"We have offered 34 blocks for bidding, they are of good quality and good data has been accumulated," Prasada said.
Drawing attention to past Indo-Russian bilateral ventures, the minister said that it was the five year exploration plan drafted by three Russian experts in mid-1950s that led to the discovery of India's richest hydrocarbons deposits in Cambay and Bombay High in 1958 and sixties.

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