Cairn Energy to invest $200 m on new oil finds
New Delhi: Scottish exploration company, Cairn Energy, plans to be an active participant in the fifth round of blocks being offered under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP).

The company plans to invest $200 million to develop the recently discovered Mangala and Aishwariya fields in Rajasthan estimated to have in-place reserves of one billion barrels of oil.

Cairn has estimated that the fields can produce between 80,000 and 1,00,000 barrels per day of oil once fully developed.

In the last decade of its presence in India, Cairn has invested $1.25 billion in its fields on the KG Basin deep water, including Ravva, Gulf of Cambay and now Rajasthan. The company has discovered or developed commercial reserves of well over 500 million barrels in this period.

Cairn is also planning to do more development drilling in the Ravva field, which is now in the plateau phase producing about 50,000 barrels of oil per day.

Cairn Energy's stock was the top performer in the London Stock Exchange during 2004, with its stock at a market capitalisation of $3billion, quoting at 11 pounds per share.
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RIL raises $350 million multi-currency loan
Mumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has said that it has syndicated a five-year $ 350 million multi-currency loan. The company claims it is the first Indian company to borrow a loan with three currency options - US dollar, Japanese yen and euro. The loan has been raised at 0.75 percentage point above the London Inter-bank Offered Rates.

The money borrowed will be used for ongoing capital expenditure, according to the company. This is the first time that RIL has taken a euro loan, a news release said.

The transaction is being lead arranged by ABN Amro Bank N.V., Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd, Calyon, DBS Bank Ltd, ING Bank N.V, and Standard Chartered Bank.
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Balrampur Chini goes in for Rs200 crore expansion
Kolkata: Sugar major Balrampur Chini Mills Ltd has worked out a Rs200-crore expansion programme, under which it will set up a new 7,000-tonne-crushed-per-day (TCD) sugar plant and expand the capacity in two of its four existing mills.

With the completion of the expansion programme, the total capacity of Balrampur Chini is slated to increase to 40,000 TCD. This would make it the largest sugar producer in India, surpassing the four sugar companies of KK Birla Group, which together add up to approximately 36,000 TCD.

The new plant (a greenfield project costing Rs150-160 crore) will be set up at Akbarpur in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh. The unit would not be accompanied by a brewery or a power unit, the company has clarified.

The company is expanding the capacity of the Tulsipur unit from 6,000 TCD to 8,000 TCD and that of the Bhabnan unit to 10,000 TCD from 8,000 TCD. The cost of the expansion will be Rs40-50 crore. The capacity of the Balrampur unit is 10,000 TCD and that of the Haidergarh unit, which is an integrated sugar complex, is 5,000 TCD.

The company last tapped the equity market in August-September, 2004, with its Rs60-crore rights issue. It sold 22.75 lakh shares of Rs10 face value and charged a premium of Rs250 on every share. The issue was oversubscribed.

Meanwhile, for the quarter ended December 31, 2004, the company increased its gross turnover to Rs299.21 crore from Rs242.42 crore registered in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. The net profit jumped to Rs45.14 crore from Rs10.28 crore.

For the nine-month period, Balrampur Chini's gross turnover increased to Rs740.10 crore from Rs672.83 crore. The net profit has almost doubled to Rs71.87 crore from Rs36.94 crore.
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BPCL and Kochi Refineries okay 4:9 swap ratio for merger
Mumbai: The boards of directors of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Kochi Refineries Ltd (KRL) have approved a 4:9 swap ratio with KRL shareholders getting four BPCL shares for every nine shares held by them. BPCL holds 54.68 per cent stake in KRL.

Accounting firm N M Raiji and Co and merchant bankers Ernst & Young and ICICI Securities advised BPCL on the merger.

While marketing companies such as BPCL incur losses because of the prevailing subsidies, refineries saw their profits skyrocketing on account of the current high crude prices.

BPCL lost Rs1,270 crore last year because of subsides on kerosene and LPG.
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RasGas to double gas supply to Petronet
New Delhi: Qatar's Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company (RasGas), which is contracted to supply 7.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas to Petronet LNG, is in talks to increase gas supplies beyond the contracted amount.

RasGas will double LNG exports to Petronet to 5 million tonnes from April and an additional 2.5 million tonnes is scheduled for supply in 2008.

Petronet is doubling its Dahej terminal capacity to 10 million tonnes and putting up a new 2.5-million-tonne capacity import terminal at Kochi. Dahej imported 2.5 million tonnes of LNG from Qatar in its first year of operation in 2004-05 and will operate at full capacity from 2005-06.

The 2.5 million tonnes of LNG in 2008 will also be regassified at Dahej.
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ABB India bags Rs.135 crore West Asia turnkey project
Bangalore: ABB India has bagged export orders from West Asia, valued at Rs135 crore. The order included a turnkey project for new 220/66/20kV outdoor air-insulated substations.

The scope of the project, scheduled for completion in around 18 months, includes design, procurement, manufacturing and supply of equipment for all the substations.

ABB's multi-product equipment supply will include power transformers, instrument transformers, outdoor circuit breakers, medium voltage switchgear and control & relay panels from its manufacturing facilities at Vadodara, Nashik and Bangalore.

The company has also recently received multiple orders from the West Asia, for the supply of medium voltage 33 kV outdoor circuit breakers from its global sourcing facility in Nashik.
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AirTel to offer guarantee service for landline and broadband services
Chennai: Airtel Broadband and Telephone Services, the landline and broadband service from Bharti group, will offer guaranteed service to subscribers. The services will be launched first in the Tamil Nadu circle and then in other circles such as Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, where it has fixed line services.

Under the service guarantee, AirTel will repair telephones that are out of order within four working hours and promise error-free bills. If the company fails to meet the promises, it will pay Rs100 to the customer.

AirTel had been working on setting right its internal systems and processes. It tested out its capabilities before promising service guarantees to customers.

AirTel has 2,00,000 subscribers in Tamil Nadu, including 45,000 subscribers to its broadband service. Almost 70 per cent of the total subscriber base is in Chennai.
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VSNL Q3 net drops 21 per cent
Mumbai: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) has reported a year-on-year 21.3 per cent drop in net profit for the quarter ended December 31, 2004, on a marginal increase in total income.

Net profit for the third quarter declined to Rs142.3 crore, from Rs180.9 crore during the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

The company's revenue from international telephony and related services continued to decline. This segment's revenue was at Rs603 crore during the quarter, down from Rs669 crore previously. Income from other services increased to Rs223.6 crore, more than doubling from Rs104.4 crore in the year-ago quarter.

The company continued to witness sustained growth in the enterprise data segment business. The revenues from the national long distance business also showed strong growth.

Yet total income increased only 3.15 per cent, to Rs849.3 crore (Rs823.3 crore). Income operations rose to Rs827 crore (Rs773.5 crore) but other income was considerably less, at Rs22.2 crore (Rs49.8 crore). Total expenditure increased 3.38 per cent, to Rs668 crore (Rs646 crore).

While the company was able to effect a decrease in network costs to Rs534 crore (Rs576.6 crore), other items of expenditure registered increases.
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Cisco bags VSNL's Rs.500 crore broadband project
New Delhi: US based technology major Cisco has won a contract from Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd for deploying broadband network across eight cities.

The project, based on metro ethernet solution, is valued at Rs500 crore. The contract is one of the major wins for Cisco ever since it shifted focus from enterprise solutions to the service providers segment.

Cisco has also deployed IP-based networks for Bharti and Sify and is in talks with other service providers for deploying next generation broadband networks.

Globally, Cisco invests around 50 per cent of its research and development on the service provider segment. The company recently developed the Carrier Routing System (CRS-1) over four years, with 500 engineers at an investment of $500 million.

The company is also providing its technology to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which launched its broadband services last week.
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Hyundai's premium car accounts for Cheil Communications
New Delhi: Hyundai Motor India has awarded the advertising accounts for its Accent, Sonata, Elantra and Terracan premium vehicles to Cheil Communications.

While the Sonata and Elantra accounts have moved from Saatchi & Saatchi, the Accent and Terracan accounts move from Grey Worldwide. Saatchi & Saatchi will, however, continue to handle the accounts for Hyundai's compact cars - Santro Xing and Getz.

With the shifts, Hyundai's ad-spend of about Rs50 crore is now equally divided between the two agencies.
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