Source - CNBC-TV18
Mr Anil Agarwal, Chairman of Vedanta Group is breathing a sigh of relief after16 months labour. Vedanta finally acquired a controlling stake in Cairn India, 16 months after announcing this proposed transaction.
In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Mr Agarwal said that the group is going gung ho on Cairn and has all infrastructure to double its production. He, however, points out the group has to complete certain government formalities before ramp-up. On a very confident note, Mr Agarwal said that " ONGC is going to fully support us in doubling capacity."
Cairn energy, which had in July sold a 10% stake in Cairn India to Vedanta for about USD 1.4 billion, got another USD 4.1 billion from the sale of the remaining 30%.
Vedanta group now holds nearly 60% in Cairn India and Cairn Energy has retained 22%. The Vedanta group funded 50% of this USD 8.67 billion deal via debt and remaining 50% from its own resources.
Q - It’s been over a year that you have been laboring to get this deal done. You finally got this done. How relieved are you feeling today?
A - I am feeling great. I was always confident that this is going to go through. This is a question of energy security of our country. We only produce 14% of our oil. Even China produces 50%. I am looking forward to double Cairn’s capacity and making it a very important for the oil and gas area to make more discoveries.
Q - You talked about doubling the capacity at Cairn India and this has been a long-standing issue. It was held back on account of differences with your partner ONGC, all sorts of other clearance issue and regulatory approvals. Now that everything seems to really have been put behind you, how soon do you believe you are going to be able to hike production at Cairn?
A - Very soon. We have the entire infrastructure. We have certain formalities to complete. Of course we have to take the permission of the government and which we are working on it. ONGC is going to fully support and we will start as soon as all the clearances.
To read full transcript, please visit www.steelguru.com
