Friday, September 8 2006 11:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: India plans to denominate Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), a subsidiary of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), from buying Cairn Energy's Rajasthan crude and allow the joint venture of ONGC-Cairn to sell it to refiners like Reliance Industries or Essar Oil.

Cairn Energy Chief Executive Bill Gammell said the company had postponed by a year, production from its main Mangala field to align it with construction of a pipeline to transport the crude oil to a refinery.

A Petroleum Ministry official in New Delhi said the Government will denominate MRPL as the official offtaker of the crude and allow the Cairn-ONGC consortium to sell it to refiners.

Cairn plans to start production from the field from 2009 and has raised the peak production to 160,000 to 200,000 barrels per day from the earlier announced output of 150,000 barrels per day.

"We are investigating the potential of Cairn Energy to participate in a pipeline to evacuate crude from the Rajasthan block," Cairn Energy Finance Director Kevin Hart said.

Though the midstream development (building of pipeline from delivery point to a refinery) is the Government of India or its nominee's responsibility, Cairn was considering participating with ONGC in building a pipeline to a refinery of Reliance Industries, Essar Oil or Indian Oil Corp in Gujarat or IOC's expanded Panipat refinery in Haryana to expedite the crude evacuation.