India also wants Repsol

Apparently China isn't the only one interested in Repsol's declining Argentine assets:

India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation is looking for a partner to push forward a possible $17bn bid for YPF, the Argentine arm of Spanish oil group Repsol, according to people close to the matter.

...

ONGC Videsh, the foreign arm of the state oil company, is aggressively looking to expand abroad as it seeks to secure enough energy to meet its long-term growth targets of at least 10 per cent a year.

ONGC last year acquired Imperial Energy, a London-listed oil company with most of its assets in Russia, for £1.3bn ($2.2bn).

“The reason ONGC Videsh is so aggressive is that it has been given a very clear mandate from the government of India to secure as much energy as possible to help the nation sustain its growth targets,” said Kumar Manish at KPMG in India.

I'm pretty sure ONGC isn't at the forefront of technology to revive output from declining fields, so while in general it's a good time to be shopping for natural resources, this particular deal is making China and India seem a bit less like far-sighted visionaries and more like dumb money.

Via Green Sheet.