Category — Oil & Gas

According to the India Journal, Indian business magnate Mukesh Ambani is the 18^th richest person in the world  on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a personal wealth of $24.7 billion in 2012. Ambani runs Reliance Industries Ltd, a India petrochemicals conglomerate with interests in retailing and some assets in the United States.

On the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a  ranking of the world’s 100 wealthiest individuals, there are three other billionaires of Indian origin, but the list changes daily

#39: Lakshmi Mittal – Mittal owns 38 percent of ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker. He is the Luxembourg-based company’s largest shareholder. The U.K. resident owns several London properties, including mansions on Billionaires Row near Kensington Palace. The Goldman Sachs director has a 34 percent stake in the Queens Park Rangers soccer team.

#48: Azim Premji – Premji is the chairman and largest shareholder of Bangalore-based Wipro, India’s third-biggest software exporter. The company employs more than 135,000 people and has annual revenue of more than $7.8 billion. He also owns a private equity fund, PremjiInvest, which manages his $1 billion personal portfolio, and interest in JM Financial.

#91: Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry, now an Irish national, who owns 18 percent of the Tata Sons holding company of the Tata Group. His son, Cyrus Mistry, also an Irish National, is now chairman of the Tata sons.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will visit India from Nov 3-9 and meet Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and other Indian leaders, according to the New York Daily News.

He will be accompanied by Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources (who was in India a few weeks ago), Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Bal Gosal, Minister of State (Sport), and Tim Uppal, Minister of State (Democratic Reform), along with representatives of the business and cultural sectors.

This will be Harper’s second official visit to India. During his November 3-9 visit, Harper will visit Agra, New Delhi, Chandigarh and Bangalore.  Visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar is not figured into Harper’s itinerary for his November 2012 visit like it was in his previous visit to India.
“Canada enjoys a strong working and personal relationship with India but we must further strengthen the links between our two countries,” Harper said in a statement. “India is a growing economy with enormous potential, and expanding our trade and investment links with India will create jobs, growth and long-term prosperity here in Canada.”

Trade between India, one of the fastest growing economies, and Canada is increasing, the statement said.  Despite the 2000s recession, bilateral trade has increased by over 70% since 2004.  In 2009, Canadian exports to India totaled 2.1 billion Canadian dollars while Canadian imports to India totaled 2.0 billion Canadian dollars, giving them a hundred million dollar trade surplus.

Being fellow members of the commonwealth, India and Canada share high commissioners instead of ambassadors.  Canada’s High Commission to India is located in New Delhi, while India’s is in Ottawa.  Canada maintains consulates in Mumbai, Chennai and Chandigarh, while India’s consulates are located in Vancouver and Toronto.  Canada also has trade offices in Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.

The Nuclear Co-operation Agreement was signed between Prime Minister Manmohan and Prime Minister Harper in June 2010 during a meeting of the G-20 in Toronto, Ontario, but Canada is negotiating with the Indian government to revive defense ties.  It is yet to be ratified by both countries.

Canada is working to finalize an agreement with India that will ease the export of uranium by companies such as Cameco Corp., its Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said during a visit to New Delhi this week.

The two countries signed a nuclear cooperation pact in June 2010 to enable Canada’s nuclear industry to sell materials and equipment for civilian purposes to India. Canada has asked India to ensure exports can be traced, in line with standards met by countries such as the U.S. Canada and India are negotiating an “administrative” arrangement to address such issues, Oliver told Bloomberg in a telephone interview from New Delhi.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have pledged to triple bilateral trade by 2015. If all goes well Harper will visit India again next month.

Oliver’s meeting schedule in India was hectic according to EIN. See below for some of the leaders and companies he met in order to boost Canadian exports and encourage investment

               --  Minister Veerappa Moily, Indian Minister of Power, to discuss India's
                  energy needs and how Canada is well positioned to fulfil them;
              --  Minister Jaipal Reddy, Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, to
                  advance Canadian energy objectives and increase the potential for
                  Canadian oil and liquefied natural gas exports to India;
              --  Reliance Industries Limited, Aditya Birla Group and Tata Steel, all
                  major Indian companies that are currently investing and creating jobs in
                  the Canadian natural resource sectors;
              --  Minister Farooq Abdullah, Indian Minister of New and Renewable Energy,
                  to promote trade and investment partnerships with India in new and
                  renewable energy projects; and
              --  Minister of State Ashwani Kumar, Indian Minister for the Planning
                  Commission, to advance Canadian energy objectives in India and
                  opportunities to support India's priority of energy security.

Ed Fast, Canada’s Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway,  highlighted the launch of the fifth round of negotiations toward a Canada-India trade agreement. “Our government remains firmly focused on what matters to Canadians: jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. Deepening Canada’s trading relationships with high-growth markets like India is key to these efforts,” said Fast.

A Canada-India joint study concluded that a trade agreement between the two countries could boost Canada’s economy by at least $6 billion. That translates to almost 40,000 new jobs or a $500 boost to the average Canadian family’s annual income. A trade agreement with India would eliminate or reduce tariffs on Canadian goods, liberalize trade in services, and directly benefit Canadian workers and businesses in sectors such as agriculture, resource-related and chemical products, transport equipment, machinery and equipment, and services.

“Every household in the country will have electricity by 2017″, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised in his Independence Day speech this week. During the last five year over 100,000 villages have received electrical supply.

Singh’s statement came days after over half of India was left without any electric power twice in a row due to grid failures.

India’s per capita energy consumption is among the lowest in the world, and it is largely because many rural Indians don’t have access to electrical energy at all; in many urban areas, daily power outages are a matter of course. Most businesses and many homes have backup power via diesel generators, battery backups or both.

What this means:

Political pressure to deliver a robust energy infrastrucutre will continue to drive investment in all forms of energy production, distribution, and green consumption. This continues to be a growing opportunity area for foreign and local players of all kinds.