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World's richest man of Reliance Industries signs
new Iraqi Kurdistan oil contract
30.10.2007
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October
30, 2007
NEW DELHI, India - Even as Turkish troops
mass on the border of Iraqi Kurdistan region
'northern Iraq', India's Reliance signed a deal on
Monday to explore for oil and gas in Iraq's
Kurdistan region, a senior company official said.
Reliance signed the production sharing contract for
two exploration blocks with the semi-autonomous
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the source
said.
"To begin with we will be 100 percent stakeholders
but later on Iraq can mandate a company to have a
stake in the blocks after discovery in line with
their new law," the company official, who declined
to be named, said.
"They have been given to us on (a) negotiation
basis."
A KRG government spokesman was not immediately
available to respond to enquiries about the deal. |
Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries chairman, Ambani
overtakes Bill Gates to become world's richest man |
Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops along the
Iraqi Kurdistan border in readiness for a possible
large scale incursion to hunt 3,000 Turkey's
guerrillas who use Iraq's Kurdish region as a base.
But the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) is
moving ahead with plans to attract international
energy companies to explore for oil and gas in the
region. It aims to boost oil output to 1 million
barrels per day (bpd) in about five years from just
a few thousand now.
The KRG said earlier this month it had approved four
new oil and gas deals but only gave details of two
of them. The four deals were expected to attract
around $500 million of investment in exploration.
The semi-autonomous KRG has struck five production
sharing agreements (PSAs) this year, despite
objections from Baghdad. Iraq's oil minister said
last month that oil deals that the KRG had signed
since February were illegal. Iraq's Kurdistan
regional government (KRG) said that
deals it has signed are legal,
rejecting Baghdad's claim that the deals breach the
country's law. www.ekurd.net
The KRG rejects Baghdad's claims that the deals
breach the country's laws. The region's government
is in talks with a number of international and local
companies for further upstream and downstream
projects, it said earlier this month.
On September, the prime minister of Kurdistan region
Nechirvam Barzani defended his self-governing
region's oil deals with international companies,
saying the agreements were not an attempt to usurp
the nation's oil resources but a way to make them
work for all the people of Iraq
Under the terms of the PSAs, holders would take 15
percent of the profits, while 85 percent would go to
Iraq.
Iraq's cabinet agreed a draft law for dividing the
world's third-largest oil reserves in February, but
rows with the KRG as well as objections from some
Shi'ite and Sunni Arab politicians have slowed its
progress. Frustrated by Baghdad's delays, KRG
approved its own oil law in August.
Reliance Industries Ltd, India's top private oil
explorer, owns exploration blocks in Yemen, Oman,
East Timor, Australia and Columbia thorough its
subsidiaries.
A record-breaking performance by India's stock
markets has put the industrialist Mukesh Ambani at
the top of a list of the world's richest people.
Buoyed by unprecedented inflows from US and European
investors, the benchmark Mumbai Sensex stock index
topped 20,000 for the first time yesterday – having
almost doubled in value in the last two years.
One of the results of the surge in share prices has
been a boost for Mr Ambani's Reliance Industries, a
powerhouse of the country's industrial strength and
its most valuable firm. Its excellent performance,
along with that of two other of the group's
companies, saw the net worth of its chairman and
managing director rise to $63.2bn (L30.6bn)
yesterday.
The Press Trust of India reported that the increase
placed Mr Ambani above such figures as Microsoft's
Bill Gates and Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu, who are
each worth just over $62bn.
Reliance Industries, which was founded by Mr
Ambani's father, Dhirubhai, spans oil, textiles and
biochemicals and has annual revenues of $27bn, close
to its fellow Indian conglomerate Tata Industries.
Mukesh Ambani and his estranged younger brother,
Anil, split the group's assets on their father's
death in 2002.
Here's how the Indian reports rank the top five as
of October 29, 2007: www.ekurd.net
Mukesh Ambani - $63.2 billion
Carlos Slim Helu - $62.2993 billion
William (Bill) Gates - $62.29 billion
Warren Buffett - $55.9 billion
Lakshmi Mittal - $50.9 billion
Reuters India | Hindustan Times | independent co.uk
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