(PTI)
Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan has said the government is open to Saudi oil giant Aramco’s interest to own majority stake in the proposed Rs 3-trillion refinery at Ratnagiri, which when completed will be the largest single location refinery complex in the world with a capacity of 60 million tonne.Saudi Aramco has reportedly sought majority ownership in the mega refinery-cum-petrochemical complex for which state-owned oil firms Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum have inked an agreement.
“Aramco is in discussions with us. We have held many rounds of talks on the Ratnagiri project with them. It’s a commercial project and we are open to their suggestion (of giving majority stake),” Pradhan told PTI here over the weekend. The minister was responding to a question on whether the world’s largest oil company that is working on a USD 1-trillion initial public float this year, has really sought majority stake in the project. Some media reports had last month said the Saudis were interested in the USD 40-billion project provided India was ready to offer majority control and that the facility will mostly use Saudi crude.
