ONGC mulls buying out rest of OPaL

12-Sep-19

India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd plans to buy out the rest of ONGC Petro additions Ltd (OPaL), majority-owned by ONGC, and launch a public offering if it fails to find a strategic partner for it. ONGC has long tried to bring in a strategic partner in the petrochemical project but failed to strike a deal so far. ONGC’s stake in the project could rise to 70% if it converts INR 26 billion of share warrants into equity and to about 93% if it also converted INR 77.78 billion of debentures into shareholdings, Kumar said. ONGC owns 49.36% of the project and gas utility Gail (India) Ltd owns another 49.21%. The remaining stake is held by Gujarat State Petroleum Corp Ltd, a state government-owned gas company, as of March

“We are looking at various options. Our first preference is to convert OPaL into a subsidiary by converting share warrants and debenture into equity if we don’t get a strategic partner,” Subhash Kumar, ONGC’s director of finance told Reuters. “Another option is to merge OPaL with ONGC.” ONGC will decide by the end of its fiscal year on whether to make OPaL a subsidiary, he said. “After making it a subsidiary, it will take another two years to list the company,” Kumar said.