OIL DISCOVERIES TO HEFTY INVESTMENTS

TREASURE HUNT SUCCESSFUL

ONGC’s giant gas field in Mozambique is said to be holding around 45 to 70 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) of recoverable reserves. This is huge as it is 28 per cent more than the minimum estimated resources when it invested USD 4.12 billion. The overseas arm of the company ONGC Videsh, bought a 16per cent stake in the offshore Rovuma Area 1 over the past one year. The other Indian companies which have interest in the oil fields are Oil India which has a 4per cent stake and a unit of BPCL owns 10per cent in the block.

HEFTY INVESTMENTS

Indian Oil Corporation plans to invest `7,650 crore in setting up a petrochemical complex at its almost complete Paradip refinery in Odisha in the next 3-4 years. The company wants to use propylene from cracked LPG and ethylene from gas refinery to produce plastic. It is used in manufacturing furniture, disposable cups and trays, printed packaging material, plain and transparent films, currency notes, food packets and pressure-sensitive tapes.

GOING STRONG

State-owned iron ore miner NMDC’s (BSE Code: 526371) sales rose 17 per cent to 27.43 million tonnes in the first 11 months of the current financial year on higher demand from steel makers. The country’s largest producer of key steel-making input had sold 23.43 million tonnes of iron ore in the same period of the previous financial year.

CONSOLIDATING ITS PATH

Leading Indian-made-foreign- liquor (IMFL) manufacturer Tilaknagar Industries (TI) company has acquired the complete IMFL business of the Kolkata based IFB Agro. The boards of both the companies have approved the acquisition paving the way for transfer of all the IMFL brands from IFB Agro’s portfolio into that of TI and the agreements have been executed. With this, TI has brought into its fold IFB Agro’s vodka brand ‘Volga’ and ‘Blue Lagoon’ gin, two of the most popular brands in eastern Indian markets of West Bengal, Assam and Odisha. This is a step taken by the company, to consolidate its position in the IMFL business. The company has already made a strong base in the southern region of the country viz. Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

STRENGTHENING BRANDS

GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare is working towards increasing product offerings under its Horlicks brand and strengthening presence in north and west India to enhance its market position. The company is looking at introducing brand extensions of Horlicks, which brings in revenues in the range of Rs 4,000- 5,000 crore annually in the health food drinks segment, along with Boost.

TECH MAHINDRA TO WORK WITH VOLVO CAR GROUP

Tech Mahindra has been selected by Volvo Car Group to provide IT infrastructure and application maintenance services for its operations in countries such as Sweden, China and Belgium. The arrangement would cover 2,800 servers across the IT functions at the Swedish automaker’s regional offices, factories, global data-center, manufacturing, research and development. The Mahindra group said that it is a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract but did not disclose the DS actual deal size.