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UAE oil company to invest dlrs 1.7 billion in India |
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August 12, 2000
LUCKNOW, India (AP) - A United Arab Emirates oil company on Friday signed an agreement to invest dlrs 1.7 billion in India's most populous state for laying a gas pipeline and setting up a gas-based 2,000 megawatts power plant. The entry of oil major Al Manhal will be the biggest investment in the northern state after Daewoo Motors' four years ago. The project is expected to develop the state's backward eastern region. The Uttar Pradesh state government, Al Manhal and its joint venture partner in India, Vavasi Oil and Gas, signed the agreement in Bombay, India's financial capital. Uttar Pradesh state's population is 140 million. Lucknow, the state capital, is 450 kilometers (280 miles) southeast of New Delhi. The UAE company will lay a 1,000-kilometer-long (625-mile-long) gas pipeline from the eastern Indian coastal state of Orissa to eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh state. It will also set up a gas-based power plant in the area to ease a severe power shortage in the region. The company is negotiating with Aditya Birla Group of India for a joint venture in the power plant project. It will import liquefied gas from Australia and the shipment will land at Gopalpur in Orissa state. It will be converted into gas form and supplied to Uttar Pradesh state through the pipeline. The gas supply would meet the demand of several fertilizer and textile factories in the region, which are mainly dependent on imported Naphtha. "We do have major industries in the eastern part of the state, but the concentration of industry is still lopsided as far as western part is concerned. This gas pipeline and the gas-based power plant are expected to develop the region," state Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta said on Friday. |