News Capsules

• Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has hired Citigroup
to advise it on a bid for Kosmos Energy's stake in an oil field
in Ghana in a deal that could be worth between $3 billion and $5 billion, sources have said. Private equity-backed Kosmos, which has received a total of $800 million in financing from Blackstone and Warburg Pincus, has hired Standard Chartered and Barclays Plc to sell its stakes in the offshore Jubilee oil field.
• Adani Enterprises-promoted Adani Power said the
company had sold 36 million shares to a founder group firm
and to private equity firm 3i. The shares were allotted on June 25 at Rs 81.42 a share to 3i Power Investments and at
Rs 111.50 to Mauritius-based Capital Trade & Investments, worth a total of over Rs 370 crore.
• Petronet LNG (PLL), India's largest liquefied natural gas
importer, will sign an agreement to buy 1.5 million tonnes of
LNG from Australia in August. Supply of LNG to Kochi would start in 2014.
• Gujarat NRE Coke Ltd (GNCL), an independent producer of low ash metallurgical coke, plans to set up two greenfield plants — one each in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh —with a production capacity of 1 million tonne. The investment in these two projects is estimated to be Rs 150-200 crore, said sources privy to the development. Gujarat NRE has also chalked out an investment of Rs 536 crore for its Australia and India operations.
• JSW Steel has posted a 6.4 per cent drop in the first-quarter consolidated profit at Rs 234.08 crore as prices failed to recover in line with demand from automakers and builders. Income fell 9.93 per cent to Rs 4,013.78 crore. The revenues from the steel business fell 9 per cent to Rs 4,121
crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2008.
• Essar Oil net zooms 450%, Petronet LNG Q1 net dips 2%,
Mindtree Q1 net at Rs 57 cr, IDFC net profit up 26 per cent, Indo Rama Syn Q1 net at Rs 15.26 cr, GTL Infra net at Rs 18.7 cr, Triveni Engineering net up 62%, Apollo Hospitals profit up 53%, Camlin records 87.71% rise in net