Breaking News & Stocks

Cairn in race for two Lankan oil blocks
27 Feb, 2008, 0033 hrs IST,Debjoy Sengupta...........KOLKATA: Cairn India has entered the race for acquiring two oil exploration blocks in Sri Lanka, by bidding for blocks 001 and 002 under the ongoing Sri Lankan licensing round. Back home, it has decided to undertake exploratory drilling in new areas in Rajasthan.

According to sources, Sri Lanka’s block 001 is spread over 3,338 sq km, and block 002, 3,572 sq km. Block 001 is, in fact, closer to the Cauvery basin, where oil and gas has already been discovered, hence it is attracting bids from other international oil exploration companies as well. The chances of striking oil here are higher as geological features of the blocks are similar. In India, Cairn Energy India (CEIL) — the operator, on behalf of joint venture partners Cairn India and ONGC in contract area RJ-ON-90/1 in Rajasthan — has decided to commence production activities and development drilling at the Mangala Field.

The drilling and completion activities will commence during the third quarter of 2008, while production from the Mangala field is slated to begin by 2009. Development drilling and production activities from other fields in Rajasthan will commence in 2009. CEIL has already invited expressions of interest from service contractors for development and exploratory drilling in Rajasthan. The primary term of the Contracts will be three years, with an optional two extension periods of one year each.

Interestingly, Cairn has decided to focus on both mature and relatively unexplored areas. It will undertake operatorship at onshore and shallow water locations with selective partnerships through balanced portfolio of risk, reward and exposure. It aims to achieve organic growth through exploration and has decided to maximise returns on Ravva and Rajasthan through exploration activities. The company’s cumulative exploration expenditure between 2007 and 2009 is expected to touch $150 million (Rs 600 crore).

It will continue to renew exploration portfolios through licensing rounds, farm-ins and trades, and is currently reviewing the NELP VII data package.

Govt issues new telecom licenses; competition to pare tariffs
27 Feb, 2008, ..........NEW DELHI: The government on Wednesday started issuing telecom licenses to new players, beginning with Videocon-controlled Datacom Solutions, in a move that will spice up competition in the GSM mobile telephony space.

A total of 22 licenses would be given away today to three new players, including permits for 19 circles to Datacom, according to senior officials in the Department of Telecom.

Birla's Idea Cellular would get license for one circle in Punjab and Swan Telecom for the Delhi and Mumbai circles.

A total of 120 licenses would be distributed among nine companies, including Unitech, Spice, Shyam Telelink and others that were issued Letters of Intent on January 10, this year.

Asked when the exercise would be completed, officials said all agreements with the nine companies would be inked by this weekend.

Subsequently, these firms would have to apply for spectrum (radio frequency) separately to start rolling out network in their respective circles.

The entry of new players is bound to increase competition in the GSM mobile segment and tariffs may fall in the coming months. DoT has worked out that entry of 5-6 new players would result in fall in tariffs by at least 50 per cent from the current level.

Officials said Communications and IT Minister A Raja wants to, in fact, bring local mobile call tariffs to 25 paise a minute and domestic long-distance call rates to 50 paise. This will be possible only through increased competition.

Yuvraj to endorse Lifebuoy for Rs 2 crore per annum
22 Feb, 2008,Ratna Bhushan...............NEW DELHI: The country's single largest advertiser, Hindustan Unilever, traditionally low-profile on cricket and cricketer-related advertising, seems to be finally joining the sports bandwagon in a big way.

HUL, which has traditionally banked on Bollywood stars to endorse its brands with only one-off associations with cricketers, is now signing one of the country’s hottest cricketers—Yuvraj Singh—to endorse one of its power brands. The brand in question, sources say, is likely to be the over-a-century-old soap, Lifebuoy, though the name of the brand could not be independently confirmed.

When contacted by ET , an HUL spokesperson said: “We have no comments to offer on this.” Globosport India CEO Anirban Das, the sports management company which now manages the cricketer’s endorsements, too declined to comment on the development.

EU Fines Microsoft Record $1.3 Billion- AP
The European Union fined Microsoft Corp. a record $1.3 billion Wednesday for the amount it charges rivals for software information.

Waste not, want not
Plastics maker Sintex seeks to solve India's energy and sanitation problems in one stroke - with an at-home biogas digester.
By Jeremy Kahn

(Fortune Magazine) -- Sintex Industries, a plastics and textiles manufacturer in Gujarat, India, is betting it can find profit in human waste. Its new biogas digester turns human excrement, cow dung, or kitchen garbage into fuel that can be used for cooking or generating electricity, simultaneously addressing two of India's major needs: energy and sanitation.

Sintex's digester uses bacteria to break down waste into sludge, much like a septic tank. In the process, the bacteria emit gases, mostly methane. But instead of being vented into the air, they are piped into a storage canister.

A one-cubic-meter digester, primed with cow dung to provide bacteria, can convert the waste generated by a four-person family into enough gas to cook all its meals and provide sludge for fertilizer. A model this size costs about $425 but will pay for itself in energy savings in less than two years. That's still a high price for most Indians, even though the government recently agreed to subsidize about a third of the cost for these family-sized units. "We want to create a new industry for portable sanitation in India that's not available now," says S.B. Dangayach, Sintex's managing director.

Government officials plan to end open defecation by 2012 (hundreds of millions of Indians use railroad tracks or other outdoor locales instead of toilets) and say biogas plants are part of the solution. A.R. Shukla, a scientific advisor in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, says India could support 12 million such plants, but only 3.9 million - mostly pricier models big enough to accommodate entire villages - have been installed to date. And last year the government fell far short of its target for new installations.

The future can be glimpsed on a dusty, rutted road in a poor South Delhi neighborhood. Here 1,000 people use an immaculately clean public toilet constructed by a nonprofit foundation, the Sulabh Sanitation Movement. The biogas digester attached to toilets provides cooking gas for a 600-student school and vocational-training program the foundation runs. In the past, nongovernmental organizations like Sulabh were the only ones offering biogas digesters.

But Sintex is hoping cities, real estate developers, building managers, and hospitals will jump at a ready-made way to harness the same energy.

Biogas digesters are just a small fraction of Sintex's business. The company has installed only about 100 of them. But it plans to increase investment and production tenfold in the coming year. That growth potential has helped Sintex stock more than double this past year. Human waste may be a stinky business, but to investors it smells like money.

stock market not consolidating.

usa stocks range bound.

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BSE, NSE to revise trading hours from March 4

Mumbai, Feb 27: The country`s leading bourses Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday said they would revise trading hours from March 4-18 as the Sun`s position may disrupt connectivity, causing difficulties in receiving data via satellites.

The Indian Space Research Organisation has informed the two stock exchanges that there would be sun outage from March 4 to March 18 between 11:45 am to 12:25 pm, during which traders and investors may face loss of connectivity.

Trading on the bourses will start at 9:55 am and close at 4:15 pm local time owing to the sun outages, the exchanges said.

The two exchanges will stop trading between 11:45 am and 12:25 pm and resume trading from 12:30 pm, they added.