ONGC Videsh makes gas discovery in Iran's Farsi block
New Delhi: ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) the overseas investment arm of ONGC has struck gas in the fourth well on the Farsi block. It has already discovered oil in the three previous wells. However, the company refused to specify the quantity of the gas find.

OVL and its partners will now present a development plan to the Iranian authorities to commence production. The plan is likely to be submitted in three months.

According to sources in the oil industry, the in-place reserves are estimated at around 10 trillion cubic feet and oil reserves at one billion barrels. On the expenditure made by the company during the exploration phase, Iran will pay 35 per cent rate of return. For the development phase, the rate of return is yet to be determined.

OVL had won the bid for the Farsi offshore block (area of 3,500 sq km) in early 2002 and signed a four-year exploration service contract (ESC) with the National Iranian Oil Company on December 25 that year.

It is the operator of this exploration block and owns 40 per cent participating interest.

Other partners in the block are IOC (40 per cent) and Oil India Ltd (20 per cent).

As per the service contract, the minimum investment commitment in the exploration phase is $27 million, with OVL's contribution being $10.8 million.
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Hyundai Motors suffers labour discontent
Chennai: Tension continued between the management of Hyundai Motors and the workers at its car factory at Irrungattukottai near Chennai as there is dissatisfaction among the confirmed employees and the contract labour over wages and working conditions. Over the last three days, contract labour workers have been agitating outside the factory premises. Earlier, the confirmed employees led by the Works Committee, a workers representative body within Hyundai, were on an agitation.

According to company spokespersons, the issue with the contract labourers was settled on Tuesday. Also, the workers were not directly employed by Hyundai but through contract agencies.

Workers' representatives say the company has not accepted their demand for a hike in pay. The daily wage works out to less than Rs 150 for a worker who has been with the company nearly since its inception. After deductions such as transport charges, uniform, shoes, ESI and provident fund, the worker takes home less than Rs 100, a worker said. The confirmed employees, over 1,800 workers, have also expressed dissatisfaction.

The Tamil Nadu Labour Department is in the process of intermediating between the workers and the management on a proposal by Hyundai to move its spare parts division to a group company, Mobis India, which handles the logistics of spare parts movement for Hyundai globally. According to sources conciliation between the Works Committee and the Hyundai management broke down on Tuesday after the management refused to compensate the workers for the business transfer. The workers have also taken the issue to court.

The company's senior vice-president - human resources, G.S. Ramesh has stepped down from his post with effect from today. According to a press release from the company Ramesh has taken the decision due to personal reasons.
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Govt approves 16 SEZs, Reliance SEZ on hold
New Delhi: Of the 23 SEZ proposals taken up for discussion by the Government, 16 have been approved while a decision on seven others has been deferred.

Key among the approved SEZs were two of wind-power company Suzlon, while the deferred proposals include Reliance Industries' big-ticket Navi Mumbai SEZ.

With the latest approvals, given by an inter-ministerial Board of Approval (BoA), the total number of formally approved zones stands at 250. Of these, 100 have been notified by the law ministry, the last stage for them to start actual construction.

On the Navi Mumbai SEZ in Maharashtra, a commerce ministry official said the BoA deferred a decision due to issues related to contiguity of the land area. Objections were raised by the Department of Revenue, which is concerned that products could leak out to the domestic tariff area because of a railway line that runs through the zone.

Navi Mumbai SEZ plans to build over-bridges and underpasses in order to link different areas of the zone. The board will examine the Navi Mumbai case as well 40 other fresh zones at its next meeting, scheduled for May 31.

Other zones for which the decision was deferred today include the Suzlon zone at Udipi, Karnataka (port based hi-tech engineering products, 202.34 hectares), Greater Noida Integrated Warehousing Private Ltd (free trade ware housing zone, 80 hectares), Enfield Infrastructure at 24 Parganas, West Bengal (IT/ITES, 16 hectares), and Sunny Vista zone at Raigadh, Maharashtra (services, 103.2 hectares).
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DaimlerChrysler investing Rs275-cr in new plant
Pune: Luxury car maker DaimlerChrysler is setting up a new plant at Chakan near Pune. The new facility, being set up with an investment of Rs275 crore, would produce 5,000 vehicles per annum. The site is spread over 100 acres and would manufacture the Mercedes-Benz S Class, E Class and C Class cars for the domestic market. Production is expected to begin at the start of 2009 and the facility would initially employ around 350 employees.

The company had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Maharashtra on January 4. The existing facility at Chikali in Pune has a production capacity of 2,000 cars per annum.

The company has earmarked a certain portion of the new site for production of trucks. However, he said that no concrete decision had been taken on when the production of trucks would begin. The company had come into the domestic market with the trucks in 2006 and has sold about 50 trucks during the year.
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Deccan Chronicle group sets up global cargo airline company
Mumbai: The Deccan Chronicle group has floated Flyington Freighters an international cargo airline company. The new company has decided to purchase six A330-200F cargo planes from Airbus at a cost of $175 million each. Meanwhile it has decided to start services from July this year. As the ordered aircraft will be delivered in 2009-2010, Airbus has agreed to lease two aircraft to the company in the mean time.

The Deccan Chronicle Group proposes to ferry cargo across Asia, Europe and Africa.

The promoters of Deccan Chronicle have invested nearly Rs225 crore of the $1 billion finance that the aircraft purchase requires. More is expected to follow.

The A330-200F had its first industrial launch in January this year. The mid-sized aircraft is capable of carrying 64 tonnes over 7,400 km in `range mode' configuration, or 69 tonnes up to 5,390 km on `payload mode.'

The A330-200F is a derivative of the popular A330/A340 family, which sold over 1,000 worldwide, said Airbus officials. Airbus said Flyington was the first cargo airline to buy the A330-200F.
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GAIL plans Rs2,744 crore capex for 2007-08
New Delhi: GAIL (India) plans to invest Rs2,744 crore in capital expenditure during the financial year 2007-08. The investments would be made towards pipeline projects, oil and gas exploration and expansion of petrochemical plant.

Of the Rs 2,744-crore, the company plans to invest Rs1,855 crore in pipeline projects, Rs500 crore in E&P projects, Rs146 crore in petrochemicals, Rs94 crore in business development, and the rest in projects related to city gas, telecom, and coal gasification. GAIL is expanding the capacity of its Pata petrochemicals plant in Uttar Pradesh to 410,000 tonnes per annum (TPA) from the current 310,000 TPA. The project is expected to be completed by the first quarter of the current financial year sources said.

GAIL plans to raise Rs2,500 crore in the current financial year, of which 60 per cent would in the form of external commercial borrowings. The borrowings will be utilised to partly fund the capex in the current financial year and in 2008-09. GAIL plans a total capital expenditure of Rs25,000 crore for the next five years (by 2011-12). Of this it would raise Rs15,000 crore through borrowings and the remaining Rs10,000 crore would be through internal accruals.

Despite being hit by natural calamity and subsidy element Gail has recorded a sustained performance in all key physical and financial parameters in the financial year 2006-07.

According to the audited figures, turnover for the year went up by 11 per cent to Rs16,047 crore from Rs14,459 crore in 2005-06. The profit after tax for the year under review was Rs2,387 crore against Rs2,310 crore in the previous year.
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Government to raise Rs2,250 crore from Maruti stake sale
New Delhi: The government will finally exit from Maruti Udyog and raise close to Rs2,250 crore by selling its 10.27 pc stake in Maruti Udyog to banks and financial institutions. A floor price of Rs760 per share has been fixed for sale of government's residual stake in the automobile giant.

After the sale the government would have received almost Rs5,000 crore from its stake in Maruti from 2002 to 2007. And top it with the Rs1,000 crore control premium Suzuki paid up and the tally goes up to nearly Rs6,000 crore.

As many as 36 banks, financial institutions and mutual funds have expressed interest in buying the government's stake. These include LIC, SBI, Corporation Bank and Union Bank of India, a government official told reporters here on Wednesday.

The government says it will consider bids of at least Rs10 crore for the oversubscribed sale. Already bids have come in for 3.59 crore shares as against the 2.96 crore shares on sale. On Wednesday, Maruti's shares were trading at Rs802.05, up by 0.02% from the previous day's close. Sources said the bids were to be opened on Wednesday, but the process was postponed since heavy industry minister Santosh Mohan Deb was away.
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Eli Lilly to launch under patent drugs
New Delhi: Upbeat by the introduction of the product patent regime, US-based Eli Lilly & Company is planning to introduce a range of new drugs in the Indian market. These include its neurosciences drugs and new drugs in diabetes care, oncology and critical care over the next 2-3 years.

Globally, Eli Lilly has scientific and drug development expertise in the neuroscience therapeutic segment and earlier this year, the company has acquired Hypnion, a neuroscience drug research company.

Eli Lilly plans to launch one best-in-class drug from the Lilly pipeline to the Indian market.

For its R&D, Eli Lilly has identified Asia as an important destination and the company invested $150 million in Singapore research centre. At present, the size of the company's India operations is about Rs200 crore and Eli Lilly is present in diabetes, oncology, bone health & growth and critical care drug segments.
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