Mumbai, August 5
Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) today announced the purchase of yet another shale gas field in the US. It is the third such acquisition by India's biggest company.

RIL said its subsidiary, Reliance Marcellus LLC, has entered into an agreement with Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc of the US to acquire a 60 per cent interest in Marcellus Shale acreage in Central and Northeast Pennsylvania. At present, the stake in the oil field is held in a 50:50 joint venture by Carrizo and ACP II Marcellus LLC, an affiliate of Avista Capital Partners.

RIL's subsidiary will acquire 100 per cent of Avista’s interest and 20 per cent of Carrizo’s interests in the joint venture for $392 million, the statement said. Apart from $340 million in cash, RIL will spend $52 million in developing the shale acreage.

The joint venture will have approximately 104,400 net acres of undeveloped leasehold in the core area of the Marcellus Shale in Central and Northeast Pennsylvania, of which Reliance’s 60% interest will represent approximately 62,600 net acres. This acreage is expected to support the drilling of approximately 1,000 wells over the next 10 years, with a net resource potential of about 3.4 Tcfe (2.0 Tcfe net to Reliance).

Carrizo will serve as the development operator for the joint venture and Reliance has the option to act as a development operator in certain regions in the coming years as part of the joint venture.

Earlier this year, RIL tied up with Atlas Energy and Pioneer Natural Resources to operate shale oil acreages in the US at a cost of $ 3 billion.

Panipat, August 5
Having commenced commercial production of polymer recently, the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has mooted a proposal to export the product to Pakistan, which at present is being produced at its Panipat plant.

According to sources in the refinery, the polymers would be exported to Pakistan by rail or road across the Punjab border. The sources said the polymer would be delivered at Lahore where buyers from the neighbouring country would be able to procure it.

The IOC had recently entered into the polymer business which is dominated by Reliance Industries. The local plant has a capacity to produce 600,000 TPA of polypropylene. The sources said the test run of the plant was initiated in April this year and by June it was running at 80 per cent of its capacity. The exports will start in six months and IOC will be exporting about 10 per cent of the total produce.

The first commercial consignment was sent in May this year from the naphtha cracker unit which would be using 2.4 million tonnes of naphtha every year. It would be supplied from IOC's Gujarat, Mathura and Panipat refineries. The unit would also be producing 50,000 tonnes of ethylene along with polypropylene annually. The IOC already has a network across various states in the country and it has been banking on this to lead in polymer business. The IOC is also eyeing markets in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China and some of the European nations for exporting the polymer.

Chandigarh, August 5
Maruti Suzuki will be tapping new markets for exports this year, so as to keep its buoyancy in exports comparable to the growth of exports in 2009-10. With the scrappage incentive scheme in European countries having been rolled back, which led to a surge in exports of Maruti cars there, the largest carmaker in India is now looking at Latin American countries, West Asia and Africa.

The company is also looking at becoming an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for Volkswagen. Talks are on with the German carmaker to manufacture cars for Volkswagen’s global market from the company’s new plant at Manesar, which will be commissioned in 2012. This plant will give Maruti an additional capacity of 2.50 lakh units per annum.

“We are now looking at virgin markets to keep up with last year’s export target. Last year, we had exported 1.47 lakh units, with 1.25 lakh units (A-Star model) exported to Europe alone. The surge in exports to Europe was mainly on account of the scrappage incentive scheme initiated by the European countries to replace old cars with more fuel-efficient counterparts, and A-Star had done exceedingly well in Europe. But with the scheme now being rolled back, we will look at other countries to keep the growth momentum in our exports,” said Rakesh Srivastava, chief general manager (marketing), Maruti Suzuki.

This year, Maruti is looking at exporting 1.40 lakh units, mainly to countries in Latin America, West Asia and Africa.“Though the first quarter has shown a remarkable increase in exports (38 per cent as compared to the corresponding period last year), we are aiming to maintain the growth at last year’s levels,” he said.

Talking about the talks with Volkswagen to be an OEM for the German carmaker, Srivastava said talks are on at a global level, but a clear picture would emerge only later. The collaboration could happen in production as well as product planning, he said.

He was here to launch the new model of Alto. He informed that Alto is the largest selling model of the company, with 20,000 units being sold every month. “Riding high on the success of this model, we are hoping to achieve a growth of 35 per cent in the domestic market during this fiscal,” he said.

Chennai, August 5
The Tamil Nadu government today signed MoUs with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Videocon and JK Tyres to set up their respective units in the state at a total investment of Rs 13,000 crore. The MoUs were signed in the presence of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and Deputy Chief Minister MK Stalin at the secretariat.

As per the MoU, IOC will set up an LNG regasification terminal at Ennore, near here, with an annual capacity of five million tonne at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore (approx), and a 1,000 MW LNG-based power plant adjacent to the terminal that is likely to cost around Rs 5,000 crore. The projects will generate about 7,000 jobs.

The MoU was signed by BM Bansal, chairman, IOC, and Rajeev Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Department of Industries, Tamil Nadu. The Ennore gas terminal, planned to be commissioned by 2015, will provide more energy sources to the southern states.

The Rs 1,500-crore greenfield tyre project to be set up by JK Tyre near Chennai will commence operations in October 2011, the company’s vice-chairman and MD Raghupati Singhania told reporters here.

He said the Chennai facility would have a capacity to produce 50 lakh passenger car tyres and six lakh truck radials every year which might be raised up based on the expansion capacity at a later date.

The new facility could generate an annual revenue of Rs 200 crore and provide skilled and unskilled jobs to 1,000 people, mostly from the ITIs, he said.

The MoU with Videocon was signed for setting up a manufacturing unit at Manamadurai in south Tamil Nadu at a cost of Rs 1,500 crore. The project, which is expected to begin operations in 2014, will provide direct employment to 1,000 persons.

Hyderabad, August 5
Presently ranked fourth in the country in IT exports, Andhra Pradesh is eyeing for doubling the software exports to touch Rs 70,000 crore by 2015.

The state’s share in the overall IT exports is expected to touch 30 per cent in the next few years as against the present 15 per cent, the Principal Secretary of the Department of IT and Communications, K Ratna Prabha, said.

“We had recently unveiled a new IT policy under which 50 per cent stamp duty exemption is being given to the existing companies. This will ensure that the companies need not explore other states while expanding their businesses,” the official said.

She was speaking at the ongoing eINDIA 2010, an international conference and exhibition on Information Communication Technology, here.

The IT Secretary said the government would also extend additional sops to attract large companies with more than 1,000 employees. Plans were also afoot to expand the IT industry to Tier-II and Tier-III cities, she said.

“Our target is to create 1.25 lakh direct jobs and 5 lakh indirect jobs in the IT sector over the next five years,” the official said.

The state government had, on July 1, unveiled the ICT policy 2010-15, projecting 17 per cent annual growth rate in IT exports. AP currently accounts for 15 per cent of the country’s total IT exports and ranks fourth after Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

As part of the new policy, the government will set up towers in notified IT special economic zones (SEZs) and make it mandatory for major companies to outsource 10 to 20 per cent of the government projects to SMEs.

The SMEs would get special incentives, including 100 per cent reimbursement of stamp duty, transfer duty and registration on sale/lease deeds and 25 per cent subsidy on lease rentals up to Rs 5 lakh per annum up to a period of three years in STPI/SEZ.

The IT start-ups would be entitled for assistance of Rs 2.5 lakh for recruitments made up to 50 IT professionals within a period of one year.

It has also been decided to develop a gaming and animation facility with incubation space, shared studios, processing labs, media centre and conference facilities.

New Delhi, August 5
Food inflation fell to 9.53 per cent during the week ended July 24 on cheaper vegetables, fruits and sea fish, providing some relief to the government facing the Opposition flak on surging prices.

Inflation in food items declined by 0.14 percentage points compared to 9.67 per cent in the previous week.

This is for the second week since late last year when the government started coming out with a separate food and fuel inflation that food inflation remained in single-digit.

Analysts expect food inflation to decline further after new crops reach the markets, but said it will not prompt the Reserve Bank to reverse its tight monetary stance.

Among food items, vegetables turned cheaper by 3 per cent, sea fish by 2 per cent and fruits by 2.34 per cent compared to the previous week. Compared to last year, mainly vegetables were less expensive by 17.32 per cent. Within vegetables, potatoes were cheaper by 41 per cent and onions by over 4 per cent. — PTI

Chandigarh, August 5
After over three years of stupor, the information technology scene in the state now seems to be looking up.

Punjab Infotech - the government agency that promotes setting up of IT industries - is on a land allotment spree in various clusters identified for the setting up of IT and knowledge-based industries across the state.

Encouraged by the response to its offer of six plots in its IT cluster in Sector 67, SAS Nagar, Punjab Infotech has now offered another 10 plots in the Rail Majra IT Park.

The government had received almost 30 applications from companies with turnover raging from 30 to 40 crore per annum for the six plots in SAS Nagar. Big names like Compaq, Spanco and Seasia are included in the list.

The IT cluster in Sector 67 already has eight functioning IT companies, who were allotted the plots in 2006-07.

Rakesh Verma, MD, Punjab Infotech, said the process of allotment of these six plots was already underway and they had also received an equally good response for the 10 plots at Rail Majra.

The Rail Majra IT park is located near the Rayat and Bahra Group of Institutes on the Mohali-Ropar Highway.

“The scheme closes on August 15 and we are hopeful that we will have a wide range of companies to choose from,” Verma said.

Other than these two areas, the state would offer another 50 plots in Kapurthala in October. “We are looking at a model where we first offer land to a specialised institute which can then act as an anchor for IT companies. Initially, we will be inviting expression of interest from educational institutions which are offering IT and related courses to set up base here,” he said.

Another 1,400 acres has been set-aside in Rajpura on the Rajpura-Patiala stretch for the establishment of another IT park. “This project would be followed by another in Ropar near the IIT. We are hoping to get another 250 acres there. We intend to offer this land to not just purely IT and ITES industries but any form of industry which complements the IT industry,” he said.

He added that another 500 acres had been identified in Dera Bassi for the IT industry.