Vienna  - The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Friday rejected calls to keep oil prices at present low levels, arguing this would lead to a supply crunch.

Maintaining the current price would help stimulate the economic recovery of oil-importing countries, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Nobuo Tanaka, was quoted as saying by the Financial Times on Thursday.

Vienna  - The price for oil produced by the

Solel had approached company officials during VGGIS '09

Areva T&D India Ltd, the Indian arm of French energy firm Areva SA has signed a contract worth Rs 60 crore for Hybrid Gas-Insulated Substation with Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Limited (RRVPNL) for Indira Gandhi Nagar substation (Jagatpura) at Jaipur.

A company official said, that this is the first 145 kV hybrid GIS order for AREVA T&D in India and only the second order of its kind in the country.

Oil & Natural Gas Commission will raise Rs 9,000 crore for its petrochemicals project in joint venture with Gujarat State Petroleum Corp, a company executive said.

"It will be through syndicated loans," director (finance) D K Sarraf said, adding, "We will complete the transaction in March or early April." ONGC Petro Additions Ltd, a joint venture of ONGC and Gujarat State Petroleum Corp, is building a petrochemical plant at Dahej in Gujarat.

Kiev  - Masked government agents broke into the headquarters of Ukraine national natural gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy on Wednesday to search the premises, with the country's national intelligence agency SBU saying the raid was part of an anti-corruption action.

The armed men wore black combat uniforms commonly used by Ukrainian special force police and military units, witnesses said.

The SBU assault teams totalling 20-30 troopers were moving through Naftogaz offices searching for unidentified documents, they said.