SRI LANKA OIL EXPLORATION: CAIRN INDIA GETS FIRST BLOCK

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 COLOMBO 000648 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/INS, SCA/RA, AND EEB/ESC/IEC COMMERCE FOR BRIAN WILLIAMS AND PAUL HUEPER COMMERCE PLEASE PASS TO USGS/CRAIG WANDREY TREASURY FOR LESLIE HULL E.O 12958: N/A TAGS: EPET ECON EINV CE SUBJECT: SRI LANKA OIL EXPLORATION: CAIRN INDIA GETS FIRST BLOCK REF: 07 COLOMBO 632 ¶1. (SBU) Summary and comment: Sri Lanka, in its first ever offshore oil exploration licensing round, will award a block to Cairn India Ltd. The round attracted six bids from three companies (none American),for the three blocks on offer. Against the advice of the Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat, the Central Bank Governor convinced the President that Sri Lanka should only award a contract for the one block on which all three companies bid. The Governor's intervention over the head of the Petroleum Secretariat is an early example of the kind of political second guessing of technocrats that is likely to make Sri Lanka's oil exploration process as erratic as other major infrastructure projects have been. Separately, Sri Lanka has made no progress in negotiations with China and India over two additional blocks that Sri Lanka had "reserved" for them. End summary. CAIRN INDIA TO GET FIRST BLOCK -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Sri Lanka on July 7 signed a contract with Cairn India Ltd. to explore one of eight Mannar Basin offshore oil blocks offered in the country's first exploration licensing round. Cairn India is a subsidiary of UK oil exploration firm Cairn Energy. It beat out bids from ONGC Videsh Ltd (the international arm of Indian parastatal Oil and Natural Gas Corporation) and Niko Resources of Canada. Cairn won the rights to explore the second northernmost block, termed "Block 1", just below the block that Sri Lanka "reserved" for India as a government-to-government concession (reftel). The government released few details on the Cairn contract, saying only that Sri Lanka received a $1 million signing bonus and would receive an additional $50 million bonus if oil production occurs. Cairn India has successfully developed a number of onshore oil tracts in Rajasthan and offshore tracts in Eastern India's Krishna-Godavari Basin, which shares geological features with the nearby Mannar Basin. ¶3. (U) Note: Although Ambassador attended the Houston Offshore Technology Conference in May 2007 to provide USG perspective on the upcoming licensing round, no U.S. firms submitted bids for the three blocks. None contacted post to ask our views on the auction. Neil de Silva, Director General of the Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat (PRDS),told Econoff that four U.S. firms, a mix of large and small, had expressed interest in the auction during the Houston event, but had not actively followed up or bid. End note. CENTRAL BANK MEDDLING PREVENTS CONTRACTS FOR TWO BLOCKS -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Sri Lanka decided, during the course of evaluating the total of six bids it received on the three Mannar Basin blocks it offered, not to award contracts for Blocks 2 and 3, which received two and one bid respectively. During deliberations of a cabinet negotiating committee, Central Bank Governor Cabraal argued that less than three bids was too few for Sri Lanka to be sure it was getting good terms for the blocks. ¶5. (SBU) Cabraal told Econoff the Bank had sent two staffers to study how Bahrain, Malaysia, and India had marketed their oil fields. They had concluded that the Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat had not done a good job marketing the exploration round. It had not followed up with potential bidders, for example, to walk them through the seismic imagery, pointing out the areas of high potential carbon deposits. Econoff asked if scratching the auction for Blocks 2 and 3, on the basis of a post-bidding decision about minimum numbers of bids, would signal Sri Lanka's unreliability as an exploration destination. The governor acknowledged that could be so, but argued that was a better risk than signing a suboptimal contract that Sri Lanka would have to "live with for generations." He added that the Cairn bid for Block 1 was the only "serious bid" of the six received. TECHNOCRATS AND PRIVATE SECTOR DISMAYED -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Petroleum Secretariat Director de Silva, the government's only real oil expert, told Econoff he had advocated awarding all COLOMBO 00000648 002 OF 002 three blocks despite the low number of bids received. He believed the number of bids was a result not of poor marketing, but of the fact that Sri Lanka's overall oil production potential was small and unproven -- exacerbated perhaps by the country's reputation for political interference in processes like this bidding round. In de Silva's view, all the bids had been "respectable." He believed Sri Lanka stood to gain most by having two or three companies bringing different techniques for finding oil, thereby increasing potential for discoveries that could attract further exploration and development. ¶7. (SBU) A principal in a major Sri Lankan conglomerate told Econoff that his firm and other Ceylon Chamber of Commerce members also opposed the decision to award only one block. These firms had no oil exploration experience, but are hoping to provide oilfield services to international exploration firms. He believed that, had two or three blocks been awarded, there would have been sufficient scale for Sri Lankan companies to invest in the equipment needed to provide oilfield services. With just one block being explored, he expected Indian companies would end up getting the services contracts. He also thought that cancelling the tender for Blocks 2 and 3 would "spook" potential investors and harm Sri Lanka's long term prospects as an oil exploration market. He planned to try to convince the President to proceed with contracts for Blocks 2 and ¶3. INDIA NOT INTERESTED IN NORTHERNMOST BLOCK -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Indian Embassy Economic Counselor told Econoff that ONGC Videsh considered the far northern block reserved for India to have little "prospectivity" and that India therefore had no interest in discussing with the GSL terms for exploring the block. The PRDS Director General told Econoff that India had never given a formal response that it was not interested in the block; if it did, he said, he would be pleased to have the block available to auction off, as he thought the seismic data did indeed indicate good prospects. NO REPORT OF PROGESS WITH CHINA ON SOUTHERNMOST BLOCK -------------- -------------- ¶9. (SBU) Similarly, the PRDS Director General reported that he had heard nothing from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which has the lead on the bilaterally reserved blocks) about China's interest in the southernmost block reserved for it. An MFA Economic Affairs officer told Econoff that Sri Lanka had proposed terms for the block to China last year and had not heard back from China since then. (Note: The block reserved for China is in deep water, so it would make sense for China to wait to see if companies exploring the shallower blocks to the north find anything.) COMMENT: CENTRAL BANK ROLE A SIGN OF POLITICS TO COME -------------- -------------- ¶10. (SBU) The Central Bank's argument that a good deal in the future is better than a poor one now is reasonable. Unfortunately, in this case, it reflects the kind of last minute second guessing that has caused lengthy delays in other major Sri Lankan development projects. The interference has disillusioned the PRDS Director General, who told Econoff he was tempted to go back to his oil-related professional work in Canada, which he had left behind in order to help his country develop an oil industry. He recalled that his selection as head of the Petroleum Secretariat two years earlier had almost been derailed by one of the president's relatives seeking the job, and he now feared the whole process would suffer from such politicization. Past experience in Sri Lanka and the current government's economic management style both suggest he is right to be concerned. BLAKE