The two companies will jointly invest $66m under the terms of the deal.

Reliance and Hoodoil are building a $450m grassroots refinery at Ras Issa on the Red Sea with a capacity of 60,000 barrels a day (b/d), which is expected to be completed in 2009.
The Indian company signed a new exploration agreement in neighbouring Oman earlier this month, for the massive deepwater block 41, which covers an area of more than 23,000 square kilometres, covering an area from Seeb near Muscat in the north to Ras al-Hadd in the south.