A Brighter Future for India's Upstream Energy Sector

From The Motley Fool. June 10, 2013

India’s leading oil and gas explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp, or ONGC, has recently reported a steep decline in quarterly earnings as it sold its output at significant discounts. The company has been suffering from aging fields as the exploration-related write downs rose by one-third from the same quarter last year to $850 million while depreciation charges doubled to $423 million in the same period. Moreover, Brent crude prices also did not help, and averaged $112.64 during the quarter, showing a decline of 5% from last year.

On the other hand, Reliance Industries, the owner of the world’s largest refinery located in western India, has posted a 32% increase

European Oil Majors Are Eyeing India's Natural Gas Sector

From Seeking Alpha

India is home to more than a billion people with a burgeoning middle class and is targeting economic growth of more than 6% for the next couple of years. Like other emerging markets that have grown rapidly in the last decade, India needs lots of fuel to pump its economy but big oil has largely shied away from making significant investments in the country.  However, in February, two of the leading European oil firms have announced their Indian investment plans worth billions of dollars.

The Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A), has decided to invest around $1 billion to develop a floating liquefied natural gas terminal off the coast of Kakinada in the state of Andhra Pradesh as early as 2014 through a joint venture with the Indian billionaire Anil Ambani’s Reliance Power, India’s biggest private sector power generation firm. Shell currently has an LNG import plant in the state of Gujarat which has a capacity of 3.6 million ton; which will be gradually upgraded to 10 million tons by the end of next four years. The demand for natural gas in India has been growing and is expected to increase by 280% from the current levels to ….. read more
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