INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Saudi Arabia Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih at the International Energy Forum in New Delhi on Wednesday.New Delhi: Saudi Aramco on
Wednesday signed an initial deal with a consortium of Indian refiners to build a $44 billion refinery and petrochemical project on India's
west coast, as the kingdom moves to secure buyers for its crude in a market awash with oil.Top executives of Aramco and India's Ratnagiri
Refinery Petrochemicals - a joint venture of Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp - signed a memorandum of
understanding to take equal stakes in the project in Maharashtra.The project includes a 1.2-million-barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery
integrated with petrochemical facilities with a total capacity of 18 million tonnes per year, the officials said on the sidelines of the
International Energy Forum.Aramco, the world's biggest oil producer, is expanding its footprint globally by signing new downstream deals
and boosting the capacity of its existing plants ahead of an initial public offering that is expected later this or next year.Days earlier,
state oil giant Aramco sealed refining and petrochemicals deals worth about $20 billion in France and the United States.The plant will be
one of the largest refining and petrochemical complexes in the world, built to meet fast-growing fuel and petrochemicals demand in India and
elsewhere."Large as this project may be, it does not by itself satisfy our desire to invest in India We see India as a priority for
investments and for our crude supplies," Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said."We're very much interested in retail We want to be
consumer-facing," he said.Saudi Aramco will supply at least 50 percent of the crude to be processed at the planned refinery, he said.Aramco
may introduce at a later stage a strategic partner to share its 50 percent stake, Falih said."We have somebody in mind and we will announce
in due course," Aramco Chief Executive Amir Nasser said, without elaborating.Saudi petrochemical company SABIC is also keen to invest in a
cracker and other facilities in India, Falih said.Aramco, like other major producers, wants to tap rising demand growth and invest in the
world's third-biggest oil consumer
Last year it opened an office in New Delhi.India outlined plans in February to expand its refining capacity by 77 percent to about 8.8
million bpd by 2030.The signing confirmed a Reuters story that ran after representatives of Aramco had met with their Indian counterparts on
Tuesday.During a visit to New Delhi in February, Falih had said Saudi Arabia would sign oil supply deals as part of any agreements to buy
stakes in Indian refineries, a strategy it has adopted to expand its market share in Asia and fend off rivals.Last year, Saudi Arabia
pledged billions of dollars of investments in refinery projects in Indonesia and Malaysia that came with long-term crude oil supply
deals.The company is further strengthening its refining role in China, one of its biggest oil customers
Aramco has a refinery joint venture with Sinopec and Exxon Mobil, and is building a 300,000-bpd refinery with Norinco."Because of our
significant supplies to the Chinese market we are looking at additions," Nasser said, adding his company hopes to close a deal with CNPC
this year to buy a stake in a 260,000-bpd refinery in Yunnan.Saudi Arabia is competing with Iraq to be India's top oil supplier
Iraq displaced Saudi Arabia for the first time on an annual basis in 2017, data compiled by Reuters showed.Nasser said he was not worried by
TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
