Essar Energy to Look for Partners in India, Abroad

Essar Energy plans to get equity partners in some of its oil and gas assets in India and abroad on the lines of a Mumbai offshore block where Noble Energy holds 50 per cent interest, Financial Chronicle newspaper reported.

Iftikhar Nasir, CEO, E&P of London-listed Essar Energy, told Financial Chronicle, “On case-by-case basis we would decide on the amount of equity to be shared with the partners. However, the hike in gas price would give us the opportunity to look at it positively.” Nasir declined to specify which block he would be looking to farm out in near future.

Essar Oil, which looks after the India focused operations, has reserve potential of around 1.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent across eight oil and gas blocks in India, the newspaper said. This includes around 10 tcf of gas from the 5 coal bed methane blocks (CBMs).

Besides the company has two offshore assets: one is offshore Mumbai block and the other is Ratna & R Series block. Apart from offshore the company has two onshore blocks in Mehsana, Guajarat and an onshore gas block in Assam.

Essar Energy that takes care of the international blocks has exploration and production resources of 2.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent. 

The company is also planning to enter into the shale gas exploration business and is awaiting the shale gas policy that it expects to come, Financial Chronicle said.