Santos Seeking Indian Oil & Gas Joint Venture

Australia's third- biggest oil and gas producer, Santos Inc. is seeking partners to take stakes in two deepwater exploration permits off India's east coast. The Adelaide-based company owns 100 percent of the two licenses and in need to reduce risks as it proceeds towards drilling.

Santos during the bid to win the permit has committed itself as the operator for the permits to carry out seismic surveys and drilling of exploration wells. Santos anticipated of spending $70 million over eight years on exploration in India covering about 16,500 square kilometers establishing its root in India.

India Building It's First Biodiesel Plant

Mission Biofuels, a Mumbai-based biodiesel company is planning to build the India's first biodiesel plant in the eastern Indian state of Orissa with a capacity of 100,000 mt/year plant. The construction cost for the biodiesel plant is expected to be around $USD 75million which does not include the company's already access to 350,000 acres of jatropa farms across the country.

The construction will take two years to coincide with the maturity of its jatropha crops which are 40% planted in Orissa. Jathropa crops have made its way as a sustainable source for biodiesel fuels in the debate of carbon balance.

DOW Chemicals Growing Business in Asia

Dow Chemicals is reportedly making major investments will be made by Dow Chemicals' performance fluids business in the Asia Pacific region. New R&D chemical plants are planned for China and India in late 2008 targeting research for increasing output of new water-soluble fluids' at its Optimal JV with PETRONAS.

India Urea Plant Revived by RCF and DoF

India’s Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF) together with the Department of Fertilizers (DoF) plan to revive India's already mothballed plants due to rising demand and shortages of fertilizers. Currently, India is importing 5 to 6 million tonnes of urea on top of 20 million tonnes local production.

RCF and DOF planning to revive Hindustan Fertilizer Corporation’s Durgapur plant in West Bengal, which was earlier a naphtha plant, and Fertilizer Corporations of India’s coal-based Talcher plant in Orissa which both are now at the first stage of our feasibility study to produce 100,000 tonnes/year of urea.

The revival plan is expected to be completed in 2012 subject to assurance by the Petroleum Ministry of natural gas to supply within three-to-four years for manufacturing urea.

PETRONAS Sues Adani Energy

Petroliam Nasional Berhad, or Petronas is suing Adani Energy Ltd, subsidiary of Adani group for breach of contract in agreement to buy and sell liquefied natural gas, or LNG. The legal proceedings claimed $100 million in losses, way in excess of the Adani Energy revenue which may bring it to bankruptcy.

Petronas subsidiary, Asean LNG Trading Co. Ltd, has initiated legal action due to Adani Energy failure to service the contract to muster space at a cargo terminal in Gujarat in 2007 to take delivery of LNG. Asean LNG initiated arbitration proceedings against Adani Energy in London Court of International Arbitration in January, claiming damages for failure to adhere to the agreement.

India's rapidly expanding economy which a study conducted claims that for India to sustain a growth of 8-9% in gross domestic product its energy supply has to fourfold creating a massive influx of demand of LNG and other energy derivatives into the country.

New PVC Plant in India to be Comissioned

India's Chemplast Sanmar Limited (CSL) is expected to commission its greenfield polyvinyl chloride (PVC) chemical plant at Cuddalore in Tamilnadu State by end of 2008 with a capacity of 200,000 tonnes/year of PVC at the Cuddalore plant.

Feedstock for the intermediate vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) will be supplied from its Egyptian associate TCI Sanmar Chemicals LLC (TCI). The parent company, Sanmar group had announced that it is also evaluating the prospects of producing ethylene dichloride (EDC) and VCM at the complex located at Port Said in Egypt.

India Developing Bioethanol Technology

India's Praj Industries has set up a bioethanol R&D (research and development) centre looking at nullifying the impact of energy feedstock on food and animal feed which has lead the R&D centre to achieve a breakthrough in technology for production of bioethanol from lignocellulosic feedstock. Praj Industries is currently in the midst of commercialising its patented technology of producing ethanol from sweet sorghum with interested oil companies.

Indian Methanol Producer GNFC Expanding Capacity

GNFC, India’s largest methanol producer or Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertlisers Co is shutting down its 700 tonne/day capacity production complex in Bharuch for a catalyst change. The methanol producer will take the opportunity to debottleneck methanol capacity by 200 tonnes/day making the total production capacity 900 tonnes/day.

Indian methanol producers mostly used for local consumption, with additional demand met by Middle Eastern producers such as Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC), Iran, Qatar Fuel Additives Co (Qafac) and Oman Methanol. As much as half of the nearly 950,000 tonne/year Indian methanol demand comes from these methanol suppliers.