Thursday, January 20 2005 16:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: India today (Jan 20, 2005) began its largest-ever commercial blitzkrieg to attract foreign investment in oil sector, targeting small and medium sized firms for prospecting of oil and gas in the unexplored sedimentary area.

Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who calls himself "travelling salesman", began international road shows in London for attracting foreign investment in the latest offer of 20 oil and gas blocks under the New Exploration Licensing Policy.

"Only 18 percent of total 3.14 million sq km has been extensively explored. Of the prognosticated resource of 28 billion tonnes, just over 25 per cent of total resources are established," he said.

Aiyar acknowledged India was not as oil rich as the Gulf region but sees huge potential in Bay of Bengal and the western offshore and is targeting small and medium sized foreign companies for exploitation of the untapped reserves.

Besides enlisting presence of firms like British Gas, BP Exploration, Burren Energy, Cairn Energy, ENI, Hardy Oil & Gas, Hunt Oil, Statoil, Total Elf, Tullow and Premier at the road show in London, Aiyar will also have one to-one meetings with a host of other companies.

In London, he is meeting officials of Burren Energy, Blanche International, Stratic Energy Corp, Mercury Oil and Gas, Blackwatch, Granby Enterprises, Atlantic Energy, Maghreb Petroleum, Hardy, BG Exploration, Premier Oil and Statoil.

Aiyar will travel to Houston and Calgary later this month, where he has meetings with Chevron Texaco, Shell, Exxon Mobil, Murphy, BHP Billiton, Samson Interatnional, Jubilant Enpro, Niko Resources, Talisman, GeoGlobal and EnCana Energy.