| A promising start in Sino-Indian co-operation in the global hunt for energy resources to aid their simultaneous economic growth has been stymied by the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria. In a landmark effort to transform their competition into collaboration, ONGC Videsh Ltd, the state-owned international petroleum arm of India, and Fulin Investments Sarl, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Company International (CNPCI), set up a joint venture in Amsterdam called Himalaya Energy Syria six years ago to operate 36 oil fields in Syria. The fields are estimated to contain reserves of 300 million barrels of oil. India and China own an equal stake of 50 per cent each in Himalaya Energy. The arrangement was meant to be a model for joint energy search by Asia's two rapidly growing economies and to change global oil exploration efforts into a consumer's business from a seller's monopoly. It worked well until the Arab Spring destabilised West Asia, producing 85,000 barrels per day and remittances for India, after adjusting costs and Syria's socialist currency controls, of about $3 million per month. For at least a decade now, India and China have been engaged in a scramble for energy resources worldwide to facilitate their ongoing economic development, often allowing producers of oil, gas, metals and minerals to dictate to them on price and availability on account of a scarcity of those resources. The Sino-Indian joint venture in third-party Amsterdam to exploit Syria's energy resources was conceived during Mani Shankar Aiyar's brief stewardship of the petroleum and natural gas ministry. That was the only time this ministry thought out of the box or cerebrally since K.D. Malaviya, who was minister for mines and fuel in Jawaharlal Nehru's cabinet, risked all, including his own political career, to make India stand on its feet in matters of energy security to the extent possible at that time. In a stark reminder that nothing has changed in half a century in the strategic business of oil, the US government shot off a demarche to the external affairs ministry as soon as the Sino-Indian joint venture was formalised, protesting against their efforts to tap Syria's oil wealth. In Malaviya's time, in the 1950s, Washington used to vociferously protest against the then fuel minister's attempts to develop India's public sector oil business at the cost of multinational giants, many of which were US-owned. The US demarche against India getting involved in the Syrian oil business through the Amsterdam route came well before the Assad government faced any domestic revolt. The American complaint on this occasion was that the Indian business initiative was in violation of two UN Security Council resolutions "mandating complete co-operation by the government of Syria with the UN's investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri". Washington's fear was that "the Syrian regime will seek to exploit news of any FDI (foreign direct investment) at the moment as evidence that it is not isolated and therefore not comply with its UNSCR (Security Council Resolution) obligations…. We ask that you reconsider this decision to extend such a significant amount of investment in Syria," the demarche, which this correspondent has seen, added. The Manmohan Singh government ignored the demarche and went ahead with the joint venture with China for conducting business in Syria. It similarly mooted a joint venture with China in Sudan, which also invited Washington's displeasure. Aiyar had also proposed such Sino-Indian co-operation in Ecuador's energy industry, but was forced out of the petroleum ministry before he could take such ideas further. Two years later, when Assad came to India in June 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh complained to the Syrian President that a bid by the state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) for setting up two 240MW thermal power plants in Tishreen had been held up in the notorious red tape of the Damascus bureaucracy. Assad, who was grateful for the Sino-Indian petroleum investments, cleared the project within 48 hours of his return to Damascus and Bhel was given the contract worth 500 million euros from the Syrian ministry of electricity's public establishment of electricity for generation and transmission. ONGC Videsh Ltd has another investment of $44 million in an oil block in the central-eastern part of Syria, which works out to a 60 per cent stake there. Two other firms hold a 40 per cent stake between them in the block. Production at the Al Furat fields, as the blocks given to the Sino-Indian joint venture are known, was cut by 15 per cent six months ago as sanctions mounted on Syria on account of its human rights record. But a more recent round of sanctions by the European Union has meant the Amsterdam-based Himalaya Energy is no longer allowed to conduct any business with Syria at all. Syria's General Petroleum Corporation, which owns the Al Furat fields, is on top of the EU's blacklist of that country's oil companies. That makes it unlikely that ONGC will be able to do any business in the lucrative blocks it has been exploiting along with the China National Petroleum Company in the foreseeable future. "Himalaya" appears to be a name that Syrians are fond of, even for doing business. Himalaya Herbals has established a thriving joint venture here for providing technical knowhow and material for manufacturing and marketing Indian herbal drugs and cosmetics in Syria. A major Indian conglomerate with wide-ranging interests has been working on a massive contract to renovate one of Syria's biggest oil refineries but the project may now be put on hold in view of the domestic unrest. The conglomerate requested anonymity for fear that its interests elsewhere in the world may be at risk for involvement in Syria on account of the sanctions against Assad's government. A $35-million project by India's Apollo International to renovate a government-owned steel plant in Hama was suspended last August and about 100 engineers who were engaged in the renovation have been sent back to India. Hama is one of the main trouble spots in the current revolt in Syria. New Delhi has an interest in peace returning to Syria soon since the balance of trade is heavily in India's favour. Out of about $600 million in two-way trade, nearly $500 million is made up of Indian exports to Syria. India imports only about $100 million worth of goods from that country annually. | 
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