India IOC loses race for Medco: Report
Monday, October 18 2004 - 12:04 PM WIB
"We quoted a price of $200 million for the stake, while Tamasek quoted close to $250 million...it's all a part of the game. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose," a senior IOC official told Dow Jones Newswires.
"We quoted what we thought was a realistic price. In the future, we will continue to bid for stakes in oil and gas assets overseas."
However, Temasek spokeswoman Eva Ho reiterated last week's stance that Temasek remains a "preferred bidder" for the Indonesian assets.
"The position is still the same as before. Friday's announcement still stands," she said.
Temasek, with S$181 billion in assets, is a Singapore state-owned investment agency and one of the biggest foreign investors in Indonesia.
The Medco bid was IOC's first-ever independent bid for buying a stake in an overseas petroleum exploration company.
Medco has proven reserves of about 154 million barrels of oil and oil equivalent gas and a market capitalization of about US$500 million.
India's petroleum companies are looking overseas to buy stakes in oil and gas fields to supplement flagging domestic output.
India's state-owned ONGC Videsh Ltd. has so far bought stakes in upstream ventures in Iraq, Russia, Vietnam, Iran, Syria, Libya, Myanmar, Angola, Australia, Ivory Coast and Sudan to supplement domestically produced oil and gas.
At around 33.2 million metric tons a year, India's overall crude oil production has stagnated over the past two years. Also, India's gas output, at about 80 million cubic meters a day, meets only 70 percent of domestic demand. (*)