Global oil major British Petroleum, French oil giant Total, Malaysia's Petronas and Saudi Aramco are eyeing equity in India's oil major, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited's (HPCL) 120 billion rupees (2.76 billion US dollars) Bhatinda Refinery in Punjab state in northern India, for which the company will tap the capital market in 2007.

"We are looking for partners and have talked to some multinationals. We are in advanced stages of talks with three to four companies," Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted HPCL Chairman and Managing Director M B Lal as saying on Friday.

HPCL and the foreign partner will hold 26 percent stake each in Guru Gobind Singh Refineries Ltd., the company which is implementing the 9 million tons per annum refinery project.

The remaining 48 percent would be offered to public through an IPO in 2007. The refinery would be completed by 2009.

British Petroleum and Total are keen to enter India's oil retailing market and see Bhatinda refinery as an ideal opportunity to meet the minimum investment criteria that would give them the retail license.

A license to sell petrol and diesel in India is contingent on a company investing a minimum of 20 billion rupees (459 million US dollars) in oil infrastructure projects like refineries, pipelines, exploration and production and terminals.

BP, Total, Petronas and Saudi Aramco have respectively expressed interest in the refinery, a company official said.

Lal said HPCL, which owns a 6 mt refinery at Mumbai and a 7.5 mt refinery at Vizag in Andhra Pradesh besides about 6,800 petrol stations, has also proposed a refinery in Barmer district of Rajasthan where Cairn Energy of UK has found over one billion barrels of oil reserves.

Source: Xinhua