India for acquiring oil block in Nigeria

On Board the PM's Special Aircraft (PTI): India has expressed interest in acquiring an oil block in the oil-rich Nigeria which would also increase the supply of the crude to 60,000 barrels a day to the country.

This was conveyed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to President Yar'Adua during bilateral discussions he held with him at the State House here on Monday when the two countries decided to elevate their relationship to a strategic relationship to cover core areas like defence, energy, health and planning.

Disclosing this, Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma, travelling with the Prime Minister on his two-nation five-day trip, told reporters that the talks covered several important areas of bilateral relations, including the energy sector.

India sources 12 per cent of its oil requirements from this west African nation and in 2004 the then President of this country had agreed to ensure fuel supply of 11 million tonnes of crude a year.

The fresh Indian proposal is aimed at increasing the total oil imports from Nigeria to account for 16 to 17 per cent of India's requirements.

Sharma said there were many Indian public and private sector firms from India already participating in Nigerian oil projects. In the gas sector, a joint venture of ONGC and Mittal named OMEL is already in place in Nigeria.

Sharma said Nigeria has also expressed interest in India setting up a refinery there with ONGC as a leader.

He said a delegation of Nigerian ministers incharge of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Health and Energy called on the Prime Minister followed by a meeting of the economic management team of Finance and Energy Minisers.

They sought India's assistance in Nigeria's planning process, taxation and human resource and infrastructure development.

The Prime Minister laid stress on linking human resource development with infrastructure development. He was also of the view that poverty alleviation programmes and capacity development of human resources development was important and in this area India has contributed a lot.

The Prime Minister also directed setting up of a special group of the Indian planning commission and representatives of the economic management team of Nigeria to help Nigeria in the process and in the area of taxation, education and infrastructure.

Sharma said this working group will be set up shortly and its first meeting would take place in the first quarter of 2008.

The Prime Minister has invited President of Nigeria to visit India which he has accepted.

During the discussions, the Prime Minister emphasised on food security and gave assurance of India's full supply in the field of agriculture, irrigation, water and crop management and assistance in these projects.

The discussions with a delegation of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) saw Prime Minister talking about food security, bio fuels but without harming agriculture production and food security.

Sharma said the IBSA summit in Johannesburg on Wednesday is an initiative that brings together three economic power houses of three continents which would deepen the engagement of multi-layered relationship to a strategic dimension.

The areas of review of IBSA would include health, education, energy, social development, science and technology, including scientific research and linking of institution.

The last IBSA summit in Brazil had identified three areas in which the three countries would specialise like Brazil in bio fuels, South Africa in technology in liquification and gasification and gold and India in wind and solar energy.

He said the three countries were working together closely in WTO on issues like agriculture subsidies and tariffs.

On the United Nation's Security Council, the IBSA has committed itself to working together for a comprehensive reforms of the structures in line with contemporary realities so that the UN structures were made representative of the character of the security council in permanent and nonpermanent membership.

It also fully supported India's membership of an expanded UNSC and mutually India would support South Africa and Brazil's membership from their respective continents.

The three countries were also working together in fighting terrorism by sharing intelligence and cooperating in security agencies.

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