The Hindu Business Line : HPCL's Prize Petro to induct pvt equity firm

Looking ahead
Prize Petroleum looking at garnering about $30-60 million by offering 50 per cent stake.
The company is looking for discovered fields, including those in Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Canada and New Zealand.
It is also evaluating blocks under offer for exploration and production opportunities in Egypt

New Delhi , April 24

Prize Petroleum Company Ltd, promoted by HPCL for upstream oil and gas exploration business, shortly expects to complete the process of inducting a private equity capital firm as a partner.

Prize Petroleum, which has appointed Grant Thornton as an independent advisor to induct a private equity company, has received response from 20 entities, said Mr M.N. Prasad, CEO of Prize Petroleum.

However, he refused to disclose the names of the financial institutions that have evinced interest in the company.

Stake on offer

Short-listing of names is going on, said Mr Prasad, adding that the entire process of inducting an equity firm is likely to be completed in a month or so.

Currently, the company's paid-up equity capital stands at Rs 20 crore.

With the induction of equity partner, HPCL's holding in the company would stand at 50 per cent; the remaining would be with financial institutions or the private equity firm, he told Business Line.

Prize Petroleum is looking at garnering about $30-60 million by offering 50 per cent stake.

"Since HPCL proposes to pump in Rs 100 crore into the company, we would prefer the private equity firm to match HPCL's offer. We have offers for $300-400 million."

Overseas plans

On its plans to acquire assets overseas, Mr Prasad said that the company would accelerate the process once the equity issue was tied up.

"Then we would go for acquiring a discovered oil field and use the cash flows to build on the exploration portfolio."

The company is aggressively scouting for oil and gas assets overseas. It has plans to invest up to $1 billion over 3-5 years for the purpose.

The company is looking for discovered fields, including those in Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Canada and New Zealand.

HPCL, through Prize Petroleum, is also evaluating blocks under offer for exploration and production opportunities in Egypt.

Ganoub El Wadi Holding Petroleum Company and Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company have invited international 2006 bid for round-1 for exploration and production opportunities in Egyptian blocks, which the company is evaluating.

Prize Petroleum currently has four fields in Gujarat. Of these, three are marginal fields and one is an exploration field under the product-sharing contract with the Government.

The company recently acquired a cluster of three fields (Cluster 7) in Mumbai offshore.

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