Press release

Mangalore, May 11: Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd, a subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, will export close to a million tonnes of petroleum products to Mauritius.

MRPL will meet all of the gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and furnace oil requirement of Mauritius in the year to July 2007, a company release said.

State trading corporation of Mauritius has finalised the imports with MRPL.

"The supplies will commence from August 2006," the release said.

This is the first time that Mauritius will be importing petroleum products from India.

ONGC has earlier entered into a MoU for oil and gas exploration in Mauritius, and preparatory actions have been initiated.

"MRPL has been stepping up product exports to sustain continued operation of the refinery at 125 per cent of the rated capacity, the highest in India. MRPL's export earnings nearly doubled in 2005-06," the release said.

ONGC chairman and managing director and MRPL chairman Subir Raha said in Delhi that despite hardening of international prices and ocean freight, MRPL offered very attractive and competitive prices to Mauritius.