India Said to Propose Sovereign Fund to Acquire Energy Assets

March 17 (Bloomberg) -- India may create a sovereign fund to help state companies compete for overseas energy assets with rivals from China, a government official said.

The oil ministry has formally asked the finance ministry to use a part of the nation’s $254 billion foreign-exchange reserves for the proposed fund, the official said, declining to be identified because a decision hasn’t been reached.

“Such a fund would be very, very welcome if we are to compete with the Chinese,” R.S. Sharma, chairman and managing director of state-run Oil & Natural Gas Corp., India’s biggest energy explorer, said by telephone from New Delhi.

India has trailed China in the quest for oil as ONGC and rivals PetroChina Co. and Cnooc Ltd. scour the globe for resources to meet demand in the most populous and fastest- growing major economies. Chinese companies spent a record $32 billion last year to buy oil, coal and metal assets in Africa, Asia and Australia compared with $2.1 billion invested by ONGC in the only Indian energy acquisition.

“India needs to speed up overseas acquisitions to cater to economic growth,” Dharmakirti Joshi, principal economist at Crisil Ltd., the Indian unit of Standard & Poor’s, said from Mumbai. “India’s forex reserves have been strong enough of late and companies here need a boost.”

The South Asian nation had foreign reserves of $254 billion on March 5 compared with China’s $2.4 trillion in December 2009.

Oil Minister Murli Deora declined to comment. B.S. Chauhan, finance ministry spokesman, said he can’t comment on discussions between ministries.

Plans Blocked

Cnooc, China’s biggest offshore oil explorer, this week agreed to buy half of Argentina’s Bridas Corp. for $3.1 billion, its biggest purchase, capping $6.6 billion of acquisitions on three continents in the past four years. Cnooc bought a stake in a Nigerian oil field in 2006 after India’s government blocked ONGC’s plan to buy the share.

China Investment Corp., the country’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, last year invested in energy and mineral producers in nations including Canada, Indonesia and the U.S. while China Development Bank Corp. gave China National Petroleum Corp., PetroChina’s parent, a $30 billion loan at a discounted interest rate to fund overseas expansion.

Demand for fuel in India, the world’s second-most populous nation, may rise as growth in the $1.2 trillion economy accelerates and output from aging domestic fields declines. India’s finance ministry expects gross domestic product to expand 8 percent in the year starting April 1.

India’s total energy consumption may more than double by 2030 to 833 million tons of oil equivalent, based on current trends, driven by population growth and an industrial build-up, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

ONGC last year bought Imperial Energy Plc for 1.4 billion pounds ($2.1 billion) in India’s biggest energy acquisition.

India imports more than 75 percent of its crude oil needs.