ONGC starts drilling 46th well in Bengal basin
Kolkata: ONGC has started drilling in its 46th well in the Bengal basin. Named Gobindapur 1, the well is located 140 km from Kolkata in the Contai sub-division of East Midnapur district. ONGC had last drilled in West Bengal in a well in Ichapur in 1999. N Lal, director (technology and field services), ONGC, inaugurated the drilling exercise. Lal said ONGC has gathered a huge amount of exploration data acquired over the years and correlated them with geochemical studies in the area.

The well will be drilled up to a depth of 3,300 metres. The drilling, which will cost Rs 20-25 crore, will be completed within the next six months. Lal said the objective of the drilling is to discover oil or gas. He was hopeful that oil or gas reserves would be found at Gobindapur 1. ONGC has been working in West Bengal since the 1950s and has invested Rs 700 crore in the state till date. But it has not met with any success as yet. Hydrocarbons were earlier observed in a few wells but they were not found to be commercially viable.
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ONGC comfort letter to MRPL for funds
Mangalore: The ONGC board of directors has offered to extend a comfort letter for Rs 450 crore to enable its subsidiary, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), to raise funds for its working capital. ONGC chairman Subir Raha the letter will help MRPL raise money to fund its working capital requirements. MRPL has planned investments of Rs 625 crore for upgrading and de-bottlenecking manufacturing processes at its 9.6 million-tonne refinery. It also plans to invest Rs 75 crore to manufacture mix xylenes.

ONGC has sent its proposal to HPCL for buying out its 17-per cent stake in MRPL, Raha said. He said growth plans of the 9.69 million-tonne refinery are integrated with that of ONGC. MRPL, which had reported losses of Rs 412 crore last year, has reduced its losses considerably during this financial year, Raha said. Interest outgo in the first half of the fiscal year was down to Rs 201 crore (Rs 277.5 crore). MRPL is expected to cut its losses to Rs 188 crore at the end of the current financial year, he said. MRPL has been exporting almost 50 per cent of its products with losses of Rs 800 to 1,000 per tonne on fuel oil exports.
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Exide to venture into rural electrification
Kolkata: Exide Industries plans to venture into the area of rural electrification by becoming a technology provider. It also plans to utilise its distribution network to emerge as a rural technology service provider. There are about 20,000 remote villages in India where it is difficult for putting in place the conventional electricity. These villages are proposed to be covered by solar or wind energy.

EIL has already made inroads in the area of renewable energy systems and has in place infrastructure and personnel for design, manufacture, assembly installation and after-sales service for all types of solar photovoltaic and wind power projects. Within West Bengal, EIL and the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency (WBREDA) have together worked on a number of projects in the non-conventional energy sector. A zero-emission battery-powered ambulance developed by EIL has been donated to the state-run SSKM hospital by WBREDA.
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Tentative nod for Ranbaxy cholesterol drug
New Delhi: Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd has said it has received tentative approval from the US regulatory authority to manufacture and market five dosages of simvastatin drugs, used for cholesterol-lowering purposes. The US Food and Drug Administration has given a tentative green signal to Ranbaxy to manufacture and market the generic version of Merck's Zocor, a cholesterol lowering drug in which simvastatin is the main ingredient.

The approved dosages were 5 mg, 10 mg, 20 mg, 40 mg, and 80 mg. and the total sales for the simvastatin market are about $4.2 billion. The simvastatin market in India was an estimated Rs 42 crore and Ranbaxy's drug, Simvotin clocked revenues of about Rs 13 crore, up to July last.
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Wockhardt gets USFDA approval for bethanechol
Mumbai: Wockhardt Ltd has said that it has received US Food and Drug Administration approval for marketing bethanecol chloride tablets in the US. The tablets will be marketed in the US through a strategic alliance with Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals. This is the third Wockhardt product to be marketed in the US through Ranbaxy.

The company will manufacture the tablets in 5 mg, 10 mg, 25 mg and 50 mg dosage forms at its Aurangabad plant. Incidentally, this is Wockhardt's sixth abbreviated new drug application approval in the US market. The company already owns over 30 active US Drug Master Files for bulk activities and several other filings are in the pipeline.
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HPCL, ONGC ink MoU for crude supply
New Delhi: Oil producer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for supply of crude oil. The agreement is valid for a period of two years (2002-04), effective from 1 April 2002.
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