Shebonti Ray Dadwal replies:
Joint Holdings of Chinese and Indian Firms in Foreign Oil/Gas Blocks and Equity Assets in Oil Firms
| Project Country |
China’s Participation |
India's Participation |
| Yadvaran Oil Field (Iran) |
Sinopec 51% |
ONGC(OVL) 29% |
| Omimex De Columbia Limited (Acquisition of company with oil assets (Colombia) |
Sinopec 50% |
ONGC(OVL) 50% |
| Greater Nile Oil Project (Sudan) |
CNPC 40% |
ONGC(OVL) 25% |
| Petro Canada's 37% stake in Syrian oil field (Syria) |
Joint holding of 37% with Sinopec |
Joint holding of 37% with ONGC |
| Exploration right of gas block 155 (Peru) |
Jt bidding of CNPC with DMCC9RIL and Pluspetrol of Argentina |
Joint bidding of DMCC(RIL) with CNPC and Pluspetrol of Argentina |
In December 2005, oil companies from the two countries teamed up for the first time to purchase 37 per cent of oil assets in Syria that belonged to the Canadian Oil Co. at a cost of $573 million. ONGC is also working with China Petroleum and Chemical Corp in Iran to exploit the Yadavaran oil field, in which China holds 50 per cent and India holds about 30 per cent in shares. In August 2006, China and India worked again to buy 50 per cent of the shares of an oil field in Colombia. (See table above).
On February 22, 2005, GAIL signed an agreement with China that India would invest $243 million in China Gas Co. It became the first-ever cooperation between listed companies of the two countries. In January 2006, former Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar led an Indian natural gas delegation to China, during which five agreements were signed. Also, the multilateral dialogue on energy has become a stage for Sino-Indian cooperation.
China’s High Risk India Gamble
Indian decision makers played down the problems in the India-China relationship for the past decade in the expectation that deepening engagement would influence attitudes at the top level in China and thereby enable hardened positions to soften.