Gail, IOC to negotiate with Iran on LNG import
New Delhi: The National Iran Oil Company (NIOC), Iran's leading oil and gas company, has invited Gail India Ltd and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for jointly negotiating to import 2.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG from Iran. Senior officials from Gail and IOC, reports said, will discuss a sales purchase agreement (SPA) for the import of Iranian LNG at a three-day meet from 26 to 29 July in Tehran.

The SPA will be signed jointly by Gail and IOC with the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC), a fully owned subsidiary of NIOC. An major aspect of the deal is the recent directive of the petroleum ministry that LNG price at the customer's door should not exceed $3 per mmbtu and the Iranian side should offer "most favoured customer" treatment to India. "Gail and IOC have been asked to incorporate these as clauses while finalising the SPA for Iranian LNG," the reports quoted sources as saying.
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Crisil posts Rs 3.7 crore net profit in Q1
Mumbai: Credit Rating and Information Services India Ltd (Crisil) has posted a net profit of Rs 3.65 crore for the first quarter of fiscal 2003-04 as against Rs 3.15 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The total income was Rs 15.89 crore (Rs 15.08 crore). During the year, Crisil took important initiatives to improve its franchise with issuers, investors and regulators. The structured finance ratings business made good progress with new originators and new type of structures being rated during the quarter. Crisil's relationship with Standard & Poor's (S&P) expanded significantly.

The Crisil Infrastructure Advisory made consistent progress with the ongoing assignments with National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd and Andhra Pradesh Infrastructure Authority. Crisil-Risk & Information Solutions Company Ltd, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Crisil consolidated its CPR rankings business with the CPR becoming an accepted industry standard, both for internal performance benchmarking by the funds and marketing and resource allocation by funds, distributors and institutional investors.
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No plans to de-list Digital Globalsoft, says HP
Bangalore: Hewlett Packard's representative on the board of Digital Globalsoft has allayed shareholders' fears by saying the parent company has no plans to de-list the shares of Digital. Rene Schuster, a member of the Digital board and an HP representative, said: "Digital's current operation and structure are in line with HP's operations and we see no reason to alter the current structure of DGS by de-listing the company's stock."

HP holds around 51-per cent stake in Digital. After the merger with a division of its wholly owned subsidiary in India, HP's stake in Digital may go up to 76 per cent. Retail shareholders who feel they have got a raw deal in the merger have expressed concern over the possibility of de-listing through a buyout offer initiated by parent HP.
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Divi's Labs chalks out plan to tap outsourcing chances
Hyderabad: The city-based Rs 260-crore pharma company Divi's Laboratories (DLL) has chalked out a strategy to tap the potential of outsourcing opportunities that will be viable to Indian pharma companies by global pharma majors after 2005 — that is when the patent regime will be in full force. The DLL management saw a conducive atmosphere for outsourcing by big pharma companies, which would create opportunities for Indian pharma companies committed to intellectual property rights (IPRs) and playing a complementary role to the innovators.

The company has informed that it has a three-pronged strategy to counter competition from its peers in Europe and the US. These include the ability to create equivalent plant capacity, operate infrastructure and develop processes in R&D using highly skilled professionals. All this would be done at competitive costs compared with Europe and the US. At present, DLL is engaged in developing processes and custom synthesis of several APIs and intermediate compounds for the big pharma companies for their discovery products that were under various phases of development or were ready for commercial launch.
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Clariant sees India as a key location for custom synthesis
Mumbai: Clariant, the Swiss chemicals major, has identified India as a key location for custom synthesis projects. The group has two main subsidiaries in India — Clariant India Ltd and Colour-Chem India Ltd. Under the customs synthesis project, products are developed and manufactured exclusively for select customers. The company has said that there is a good opportunity for the manufacture of pharmaceutical inputs. "The custom synthesis route will result in exclusive business, with a few select customers."

The company already produces some intermediates for the pharmaceutical industry under the business unit, Speciality Fine Chemicals, like methyl acetoacetate in amoxycline and tert-butyl acetoacetate in cephalosporines. The Indian operations of the company are also expected to attract special attention as European companies are increasingly shifting their production bases to Asian countries especially India to cut costs.
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L&T division bags Rs 1,968-crore orders
Mumbai: The engineering, construction and contracts (ECC) division of Larsen & Toubro bagged orders worth Rs 1,968 crore during the first quarter of the year, which is 47 per cent higher than the orders of Rs 1,337 crore achieved in the first quarter of the previous year. The company says it has sustained the brisk tempo of its order booking performance of the previous year during the first quarter of the current year.

Domestic orders amounted to Rs 1,738 crore, showing a year-on-year increase of 42 per cent. This includes orders from the oil and refinery sectors, one order from Tata Steel for a sinter plant and blast furnace, orders from diversified industries such as airlines, railways, and the core sector. ECC's export order booking has doubled to Rs 230 crore during the quarter April to June, 2003.
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Tata Engineering to be renamed Tata Motors
Mumbai: Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company Ltd will be renamed Tata Motors Ltd. Ratan Tata, chairman, Tata Engineering, said, "Engineering per se is not our business, it is a capability that we have." For the first quarter, Tata Engineering reported a profit after tax of Rs 100.31 crore (Rs 28.03 crore for the year-ago period) on net sales/income from operations of Rs 2,922.70 crore (Rs 2,087.24 crore). Q1 operating margin at 13.3 per cent, was the highest in the last 21 quarters. Outlining challenges to the company, Tata said it must tackle the spectre of rising competition by cutting costs on continuing basis with consequent drop in break even levels and hedge against segment/market cyclicality by exporting to markets abroad.
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Seimens sales rise 8%
Mumbai: The sales turnover of Siemens Ltd for the nine months ended June 2003 increased by 8 per cent to Rs 9,877 million as compared to Rs 9,138 million in the corresponding period in the previous year. The major contributors to the sales turnover were the automation and drives, power, and healthcare businesses, whereas the transportation systems business registered a strong growth of 50 per cent. For the quarter ended 30 June 2003, the sales turnover remained relatively steady at Rs 2,995 million as compared to Rs 3,027 million in the same quarter of the previous year.

The company received new orders valued at Rs 11,805 million for the nine months ended June 2003 as compared to Rs 8,571 million in the corresponding period of the previous year, registering a substantial rise of 38 per cent. The growth drivers were the power transmission and distribution and transportation systems businesses, whereas the automation and drives segment was the largest volume contributor. The new orders inflow for the quarter ended June 2003 was Rs 3,920 million as against Rs 2,527 million for the third quarter of the previous year.
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