Mukesh Ambani, Prashant Ruia endorse NELP road show

The ninth round of auctioning acreage for oil and gas exploration under the new exploration licensing policy (NELP) by the petroleum and natural gas ministry received personal endorsements on Monday from two of India's largest private players in the oil industry - Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries Ltd and Prashant Ruia of the Essar Group.

The two captains of industry, who together straddle nearly 40 per cent or so of the country's refining capacity through various entities, joined several chief executives and senior executives from domestic and overseas oil companies at the first road show to hawk the ministry's latest round of acreage auction.

"Personally, I have great confidence in offshore exploration in India. All NELP rounds have been a success and I am sure NELP 9 too will be successful," Ambani said.

Asked if RIL will bid in the latest round, he said, "We in Reliance continuously evaluate opportunities. This is not a platform to make an announcement about Reliance."

Both Ambani and Ruia seemed to have walked the extra mile to endorse the auction. Ambani was scheduled to fly to Delhi to join the prime minister's delegation to Japan. Ruia had a board meeting to announce the second quarter's results of Essar Oil.

Ambani joined the proceedings mid-way and spent nearly an hour at the road show. The RIL chairman arrived after Ravi Bastia -a senior geologist at his firm and seen as a contender for the chairmanship of the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) - completed his presentation.