India IOC loses bid to buy Medco stake

India IOC loses bid to buy Medco stake

NEW DELHI: State-owned refiner Indian Oil Corp. said on Monday it had lost out to Singapore-based Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd. in its bid to buy a 38.4 percent stake in Medco Energi Internasional, Indonesia's largest upstream oil and gas exploration company.

"We quoted a price of US$200 million for the stake, while Tamasek quoted close to $250 million ... it's all a part of the game. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose," a senior IOC official told Dow Jones Newswires.

"We quoted what we thought was a realistic price. In the future, we will continue to bid for stakes in oil and gas assets overseas."

The Medco bid was IOC's first-ever independent bid for buying a stake in an overseas petroleum exploration company.

Medco has proven reserves of about 154 million barrels of oil and oil equivalent gas and a market capitalization of about $500 million. -- Dow Jones