GAIL in talks to acquire stake in Tanzania gas block

 
GAIL (India) Ltd, the country's biggest natural gas distributor, on Tuesday said it is in talks to acquire Ophir Energy's 10 per cent stake in gas blocks in Tanzania.

"We are in talks are irrespective of Singapore's Pavilion Energy reportedly buying half of Ophir's stake. We continue to be in dialogue," GAIL Director (Marketing) Prabhat Singh said on the sidelines of 8th Asia Gas Partnership Summit.

GAIL was keen to buy part of Ophir Energy Plc's remaining 20 per cent stake in blocks 1, 3 and 4, which are estimated to hold an estimated 15 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas reserves.

Pavilion last month offered to pay $1.3 billion for a 20 per cent stake in three gas blocks offshore Tanzania in East Africa.

While Singh refused to give details, industry sources said GAIL had put a price of about $600 million for a 10 per cent interest.

Pavilion Energy, established by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek earlier this year, in a statement last month announced the acquisition saying the transaction is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2014.

The firm said it has "entered into an agreement to purchase 20 per cent interest in Tanzania blocks 1, 3 and 4 from Ophir Energy for a consideration of $1.288 billion."

GAIL is aggressively tying up liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies to meet rising energy needs of the country.

The first deliveries from Tanzania blocks are scheduled to start in 2020. BG Group is the operator of the three blocks with 60 per cent stake.

With Ophir, GAIL is hoping to follow footsteps of ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL) into hyrocarbon-rich Africa. OVL has in two transactions acquired 20 per cent stake in a giant gas block off Mozambique for over $5 billion.

East Africa has come into focus following massive gas discoveries in deep waters off the coast of Mozambique, which neighbours Tanzania.

The region is ideally placed to serve Asian export markets and so has attracted Indian firms that are trying to secure energy for the nation's growing energy needs.

GAIL has tied LNG supplies from the US to Russia and Ophir would have given it the first foothold in Africa.

Ophir, which counts steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal among its investors, has interests in five blocks in Tanzania. Mittal Investments Sarla holds 4.51 per cent stake in the company.

Besides 40 per cent interest in blocks 1, 3 & 4, Ophir has 80 per cent operating interest in block 7 and a 70 per cent operating interest in East Pande .

Growth in 8 core sector industries declines by 0.6 pc in Oct

 
Dashing hopes of recovery, the output of eight core sector industries contracted by 0.6 per cent in October due to poor showing by coal, oil and gas sectors.

The decline in output of eight core sector industries -- coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement, electricity -- follows a robust 8 per cent growth in September.

According to the data released by the government on Monday, the output of eight infrastructure industries in April-October was a mere 2.6 per cent against 6.8 per cent in the same period of the last fiscal.

The eight core industries have a combined weight of about 38 per cent in the Index for Industrial Production (IIP).

The October IIP numbers will be released in the second week of December.

Commenting on the data, Crisil's Chief Economist D K Joshi said the performance of the core sector is likely to remain subdued in the coming months as well.

Natural gas output contracted by 13.6 per cent in October year-on-year.

Coal production declined by 3.9 per cent.

Crude oil output was also poor with 0.8 per cent fall in the month under review.

Petroleum refinery production declined by 4.8 per cent.

Among those which put up good performance, fertiliser output registered a growth of 4.1 per cent and steel production grew at 3.5 per cent.

Cement and power generation sectors posted marginal growth of over 1 per cent each in the month under review.

12 FDI proposals worth Rs 822 cr cleared: Govt

 
Government on Monday said it has cleared 12 foreign investment proposals, including that of Swedish fashion major Hennes & Mauritz, totalling Rs 821.63 crore.

"Based on the recommendations of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) in its meeting held on November 13, 2013, the Government of India has approved twelve (12) proposals of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) amounting to Rs 821.63 crore," Finance Ministry said in a statement.

Vodafone's proposal to increase its shareholding in its Indian arm to 100 per cent from the current 64.38 per cent was withdrawn from the agenda, it added.

The Rs 10,141 crore proposal, moved by CGP India Investments Ltd (an indirect Mauritian unit of Vodafone International Holdings BV), is now scheduled to be taken up in the next FIPB meeting on December 6.

As per the statement, the decision on Swiss building materials major Holcim's proposal has been kept in "abeyance".

H & M has got the approval to invest about Rs 720 crore for opening stores across the country. It plans to set up a wholly owned subsidiary in India to undertake single brand retailing. The fashion retailer has 3,000 stores spread across 53 markets worldwide.

Other FDI proposal which have have been cleared include that of Bay Capital Investment Ltd, Mauritius; Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd; Hawco Petrofer LLP, Mumbai; Jobair Hasan Chowdhury and Ms. Tasneem Ahmed, Bangladesh and Green Destinations Holdings, Mauritius.

The Finance Ministry further said that decision on four FDI proposals including that of GETCO Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore and P5 Asia Holding Investments (Mauritius) Limited, have been deferred.

Four FDI proposal were also rejected, the Ministry said.

These include Veritas (India) Limited and Astonfield Renewables Pvt Ltd.

India's FDI inflows during April-August grew 4 per cent to $8.46 billion.

Apple buys Topsy in pursuit of more Twitter tips

Apple has bought Topsy Labs in a deal that will provide the iPhone maker with more insights about the chatter on Twitter.

Topsy pores through the stream of conversations occurring on Twitter to identify trends and people influencing public opinion. The San Francisco start-up also runs a free search engine that boasts an index of every tweet posted since 2006, a resource that's not publicly available on Twitter's own online messaging service.

Apple Inc. spokeswoman Kristin Huguet confirmed the Topsy acquisition on Monday without elaborating on the Cupertino, Calif., company's plans for the Twitter analytic tools. The acquisition price wasn't disclosed.

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans," Huguet said.

Getting a better grasp on the hottest topics on Twitter could help Apple sell more advertising on iPhones and iPads.

Apple has been trying to boost its mobile advertising revenue for years.

Topsy's Twitter tools also could be used simply to give the iPhone a search feature that isn't available on rival products running on Google's Android operating system. Unlike Topsy, Google hasn't been able to obtain a licensing agreement that would give its search engine more immediate and deeper access to Twitter's content.

Twitter ranks among the most popular applications on smartphones, so a quicker way to search through tweets on the device might appeal to some consumers.

Apple spent a total of $496 million acquiring other companies during its last fiscal year ending Sept. 28. In comparison, Google Inc. spent $1.4 billion acquiring other companies during the same stretch.

Indian rupee up 16 paise against US dollar, at 62.28

 
The Indian rupee rose by 16 paise to 62.28 against the US dollar in early trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange after the economy grew by a higher-than-expected 4.8 per cent in the September quarter.

The domestic currency had lost three paise to close at 62.44 against the dollar on Friday amid demand for the US currency from oil refiners.

Forex dealers on Monday said increased selling of the US currency by exporters, a higher opening in the domestic equity market and strengthening of euro and yen against the dollar overseas also supported the rupee.

The BSE Sensex rose 70.67 points, or 0.34 per cent, to 20,862.60 in early trade on Monday.