Indian Oil to Borrow $10 billion to Buy Oil and Gas Abroad
State-run Indian Oil Corp., India's largest listed company by sales, plans to borrow $10 billion over the next decade to buy oil and gas assets overseas, in a bid to expand its petrochemical business and set up a liquefied natural gas terminal,
Also, it plans to cut exposure to selling discounted fuel to domestic consumers, its new chairman revealed.
"Africa is our first preference", Indian Oil Chairman Brij Mohan Bansal told Dow Jones Newswires. "We are open to other continents too, as long as it is economical to bring the crude to India".
Indian Oil, an oil marketing and refining company, is revealed to conglomerate with other major state-run Indian energy companies, including flagship oil group Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and Coal India, which yields more than 80% of India's total coal, in launching ambitious overseas expansion plans.
Indian Oil, which gets above 90% of its revenue from petroleum product sales, is losing its hand on 1.06 billion rupees ($23.3 million) daily selling cooking and auto fuels at state-set prices.
Indian Oil will try to meet at least 20% of its crude oil needs from its own overseas assets, Bansal quotes.
