Turkmenistan’s gas and oil reserves may soon attract the attention of yet another world players, Russian newspaper RBK daily reported Tuesday:

India ONGC Mittal Energy has acquired a 30 percent stake in an exploration block in the Caspian Sea, potentially coming into direct competition with LUKoil, which plans to initiate developing a project in the basin before the end of the year.
ONGC Mittal Energy, a joint venture between oil and gas company ONGC Videsh and steel giant Mittal Investment, owned by billionaire Lakshi Mittal, did not reveal how much it paid for its stake.
The Turkmen project will become the Indian joint venture’s fourth oil and gas holding. ONGC Mittal Energy has previously gained rights to two projects off the Nigerian coast and one in Syria. German gas firm Wintershall will hold a 34 percent stake in the project and a further 36 percent will be held Denmark’s Maersk Oil, ONGC said.
Blocks 11-12, which the venture will explore, covers an area of 5,663 square meters. Wintershall and Maersk have already carried out seismic exploration and set up an exploratory rig.
ONGC said in a statement that further rig installations at the block are planned for 2008.
Turkmenistan’s Caspian shelf holds significant hydrocarbon reserves, but only its most promising sectors are so far being developed. In spring, Turkmen Preident Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov called on his government to undertake more efforts in attracting foreign investment into Caspian energy resources. At the time, the number of foreign companies operating in the Caspian was small and included only Maersk and Wintershall, as well as Irish-registered Dragon Oil and Malaysia’s Petronas.
Russian companies have also long expressed interest in Turkmenistan’s oil and gas wealth. In 2001, the Zarit joint venture, which included Zarubezhneft, Itera, Rosneft and Turkmenneft, was created, but the venture has not yet developed any Caspian shelf deposits. It was interested a deposit situated on the water boundary between Iran and Turkmenistan, which is contested by Tehran, however.
LUKoil, which already has interests in Russia’s sector of Casian shelf, will also soon undertake exploration on Turkmenistan’s sector of the sea. In September, LUKoil chief executive Vagit Alekperov expressed hopes that negotiations with Turkmenistan for his company to gain exploration rights to blocks 19, 20 and 21 would be completed by the end of the year. The section will be developed on a parity basis with U.S. oil firm ConocoPhillips. The blocks are rich with gas as well as oil, Alekeperov said at the time.
UralSib analyst Yevgeniya Dyshlyuk said that exploration and extraction on the Turkmen shelf would be an ideal opportunity for LUKoil to develop its gas business.
Analysts said that ONGC Mittal Energy’s Turkmen projects could lead not only to rivalry with LUKoil, but maybe even partnership.
Dyshlyuk noted that LUKoil and Mittal Investment already jointly control Nelson Resources, which operates in Kazakhstan.
In summer, Lakshi Mittal said Nelson Resources could eventually come under ONGC Mittal Energy’s management.
Market players have also commented on the growth of Indian energy companies’ presence on the Central Asian market.
Reports have previously linked Lakshmi Mittal and his company with Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which operates a 1,510-kilometer pipeline that connects oil fields in Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk.
Experts believe that Central Asian hydrocarbon reserves present an easier option for Indian companies than those on the Sakhalin, an island located off the Far Eastern coast of Russia, in which Indian companies have also been involved.