Anil Ambani requests Reliance Energy directors to stay on
Mumbai: Anil Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Energy Ltd., has requested the six directors who had resigned last week, to continue to serve the company. A meeting of the company's board of directors is being convened in the next few days on this issue.

Six of the 12 directors, including the Vice-Chairman, Satish Seth, had resigned from the board of Reliance Energy on Thursday last.

A Reliance Energy spokesman said: "The chairman and managing director, Anil Ambani has requested each of the six directors to serve the company as before. A Reliance Energy Board Meeting will be convened in the next few days on the issue of the resignation of the six directors and other related issues.''

Reliance Energy is owned approximately 50 per cent by Reliance Industries (directly and indirectly), 21 per cent by domestic institutional investors, 21 per cent by foreign institutional investors and 8 per cent by nearly 100,000 retail investors.

The six directors who resigned are: Satish Seth, executive vice-chairman, S. C. Gupta, J. P. Chalasani, K. H. Mankad, Prof. J. Ramachandran, an independent director and Amitabh Jhunjhunwala. On Wednesday last, Reliance Industries' Chairman, Mukesh Ambani persuaded M. L. Bhakta to reconsider his resignation from the Reliance Industries board. Bhakta, a founder member of the company, had announced his resignation on November 23.
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ONGC wants stake in Vankor oilfield
New Delhi: The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation is eyeing stake in Russia's Vankor oil and gas field and is also looking at two other exploration blocks of the Russian oil firm Rosneft.

A team from ONGC Videsh Ltd., the foreign arm of ONGC, visited Moscow earlier this month to study data on the Vankorskoe oil and gas field, according to company sources.

Vankorskoe field comprises Vankor field and Northern Vankor field, which have 125 million tonnes of oil reserves and 75 billion cubic metres of gas reserves. By 2005, Rosneft intends to boost oil output in the Vankor field from the initial 500,000 tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes. It plans to reach six million tonnes by 2008.

OVL is also looking at partnering Rosneft in the Sakhalin-3 oil and gas fields in the Russian Far East and in one more exploration block in Siberia. The Kirinsky sector of the Sakhalin-3 project will produce 24 million tonnes of oil and 18 billion cubic metres of gas from 2014 and has ExxonMobil, Rosneft and Chevron Texaco as 33.33 per cent partner.

The V. Odoptinskiy and Ayashsky sectors of the Sakhalin-3 project has ExxonMobil as operator with 66.67 per cent stake and Rosneft with 33.33 per cent and will produce 16.7 million tonnes of oil and 67 billion cubic metres of gas. Sakhalin-3's Veninsky sector has 51 million tonnes of oil reserves.
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MTNL International Long Distance services from 2005
New Delhi: MTNL will start its own international long distance services in early 2005, for which the PSU has written to the Department of Telecom to grant it licence. According to the company, it expects to sign the licensing agreement with DoT next month.

While BSNL was given an ILD licence two years ago, MTNL has at present a Letter of Intent (LoI) for such a licence. It is gearing up to start its own ILD services next year and has already signed the licensing agreement with DoT. At present, both the PSUs use VSNL's network infrastructure to offer ILD services. MTNL has also invited bids for its global tender for ILD traffic interception and monitoring system for such service in Delhi and Mumbai. The size of the tender is approximately Rs8 crore.

The ILD segment is going see intense competition with BSNL and MTNL joining Reliance, Bharti and Data Access. ILD telecom service is already a highly price-sensitive and commoditised market.
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World Phone launches VoIP solutions for corporates
New Delhi: World Phone Internet Services Private Ltd (WPISPL), a category `A' ISP, has introduced World Phone Diamond, a corporate VoIP package that allows customers to place unlimited calls to the US and Canada for Rs3,995 per month, a company statement has said.

World Phone is targeting corporate customers, call centres and other BPO operations with its new VoIP service that provides the customer with a US phone number, a US area code of choice, free unlimited in-bound calls, voice mail, caller ID, and call waiting and call forwarding to any World Phone or US number.

It has also introduced the World Phone Silver, which offers 500 minutes of call time to US and Canada for a monthly subscription of Rs1,495. Thereafter, calls will be charged at Rs3.50 per minute.

World Phone Diamond and World Phone Silver will be available initially to corporate and individual customers in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.
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Maxima to roll out new brand of watches
New Delhi: P.A Time Industries, manufacturers of the Maxima brand of watches are set to roll out a new brand of watches. According to the company, it has completed the product development for the new brand to be launched in January.

Targeted at the youth, the brand promises to be fashionable, trendy and affordable.
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