Via NewEurasia, a report that India ONGC Mittal Energy (a joint venture between oil and gas company ONGC Videsh and steel giant Mittal Investment) acquired a 30 percent stake in an exploration block of Turkmenistan’s reserves in the Caspian Sea.  The Turkmen project will become the Indian joint venture’s fourth oil and gas holding, as the JV has previously gained rights to two projects off the Nigerian coast and one in Syria.

… 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.”