Ioc Balal Oil Brief Note

DIAN OIL Corporation (IOC)

has approached French

multinational ELF to acquire 35

per cent stake in the Balal

oilfield in Iran. IOC has intimated ELF its interest

in the exploratory oil block and

negotiations for taking stake in

the Iranian oil field are in

progress, company officials

said. When contacted IOC chairman M

A Pathan declined to divluge

details of the negotiations with

ELF saying "we have made a

request to consider our

proposal and a final decision is awaited." IOC officials said ELF was

positive about IOC's proposal

and had indicated that the

decision to allow the Fortune

500 company a stake in the

Balal oil field would be taken after its worldwide merger

with another French company

Totalfina comes into operation. The chairman along with Oil

and Natural Gas Corporation

(ONGC) chairman and managing

director B C Bora had in

December visited Iran to work

out the possibilities of the two companies participation in the

oil field. RBI had already given a

clearance to IOC for investing

about $15 million in the Iranian

oil field, the officials said, adding

ONGC's participation in Balal

would come only after the marketing company reaches the

stage of acceptability by ELF. IOC and ELF are also planning a

tie-up for carrying out research

and development activities in

India besides working out

possibilities to market other fuel

additives, IOC officials said. IOC and ELF have earlier had

joint participation in Indian

ventures like marketing diesel

additives in the country, they

added. The discussions for the Iranian

oilfield had taken a new turn

with the project changing

hands from Premier Oil of UK to

the French oil company ELF and

the latter is yet to respond to IOC's willingness to take 35 per

cent equity in the project. In case the deal comes through,

this would be the first overseas

venture of IOC in an exploratory

field, they said, adding this

would help the corporation

bring about 40 lakh tonnes of crude...