(FE)
A ministerial group headed by home minister Amit Shah has given its nod to Bharat Petroleum Corporation’s (BPCL) plan to invest $2.2-2.4 billion in the Rovuma Offshore Area-1 gas field in Mozambique. The group — including finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, commerce and railway minister Piyush Goyal, external affairs minister S Jaishankar and petroleum and steel minister Dharmendra Pradhan — had met on June 4 to scrutinise the investment plan, as it is still to be approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).
The approval was required as Anadarko Petroleum, the US-based project operator, will be announcing the final investment decision on the LNG project on June 18 during the Africa-US Business Summit 2019, which is also being held in Mozambique. Two more Indian firms — ONGC Videsh (OVL) and Oil India (OIL) — have stakes in the gas field where 75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas has been discovered. In 2013, OVL bought Videocon’s 10% stake in the project for $2.475 billion and a similar stake from Anadarko for $2.64 billion. Later, OVL gave 4% of its stake to OIL.
