Dart Energy Committed to Indian Market
Indian coal bed methane sector is sufficiently attractive, which is the reason why Dart Energy has long-term plans for India, Dart Energy’s India country manager, Sudhansu Adhikary told Business Line.
At this stage, Dart is the only foreign operator active in the Indian CBM sector. It obtained three blocks in the CBM III bidding round and two additional blocks in the CBM IV bidding round in 2010.
The company relinquished three blocks it was awarded in round III. Talking about the reason behind this, Adhikary said that one block was given up due to hostility of the local tribe. At the other two, technical results showed insufficient gas for a commercial CBM project.
He told the newspaper that Dart’s co-operation with ONGC is going strong.
“We believe, we have demonstrated ourselves to be competent, committed and reliable partners,” he said.
In January 2009, Dart Energy and ONGC signed a MoU for co-operation on CBM. Dart has worked with ONGC's technical teams on geological interpretation and selection of best technology in different coal basins.
Dart is also one of the suitors for a farm-in to ONGC's CBM blocks.
“We responded to a request for an expression of interest. CBM is our specific area of expertise and we believe that we can complement ONGC in development of its CBM blocks in a fast and cost-effective manner. Our objective is to work with ONGC, to bring our strong technical expertise to the table,” Adhikary said.
Commenting on issue of Chinese ownership in Dart, Adhikary said that the confusion has cropped up due to that fact that in a complex corporate transaction in Australia about two years ago, Arrow Energy was split into two parts.
“One part, which owned only assets in Australia, was acquired by a consortium of Shell and Petrochina, which is presumably where the mistaken concept of a “China link” comes from,” he said.
The other part, which includes all our Indian assets, was renamed as Dart Energy, and listed on the ASX. “A review of Australian regulatory data will confirm that Dart does not have any Chinese shareholding,” Adhikary added.